Rubicon
by korinara
Summary: Shifting loyalties are not just misplaced obligation, and sympathy for the devil has nothing to do with time and its products. Old debts, grey areas, and blind traditions force a troll and a human to set aside petty battles and face a common threat.
1. Chapter I

**Rubicon**

**Chapter I**

**A/N: **Troll male/human female.  
I have such a soft spot for this sort of pairing.

* * *

Though a paladin, she was not strong.

He observed her from a distance and could see that she wore heavy mail armor. She held before her a two-handed sword nearly the length of her body, angling the blade in a close protective stance that caused her forearms to shake violently with the effort to keep it upright. The tip of it dipped dangerously, and the creature she had been accosted by—a basilisk with several sizable wounds on its back and a missing tail—flicked a forked tongue at her.

With a heavy blow from that too-big sword, she struck the lumbering basilisk in a futile attempt to gain the upper hand. Though its scales appeared burnt and mangled, the beast had managed to entangle the girl in a battle that she was quickly losing. She added another bright red stripe across the ridge of its spine, and without accounting for the recoil of her sword against bone, she staggered back a step with a muted half-grunt, half-gasp.

This girl was obviously out of her skill level, out of her element, and completely out of her mind. She was in no way, shape, or form dressed for this part of the Stonetalon Mountains—not with her black quarter-sleeve shirt, thick cotton pants, and heavy cloak, anyway. A gust of hot wind cemented this fact, blowing loose dirt into his eyes that he rubbed out wearily.

How she even managed to trek this far unnoticed was something beyond his level of comprehension. No Alliance member as unskilled as she would willingly travel as deeply as she had into land that was unquestioningly held by Horde hands. The mountains, of course, were contested, but the lands she'd had to have traversed to get here were not. She was certainly no scout, as evidenced by her lack of camping gear, and whether she had a mount and lost it or just _didn't have one _altogether was up in the air. He wondered if she was trying to make her way to Stonetalon Peak. If she was, though, she was heading the complete wrong direction. In fact, it didn't appear as though she was trying to cross the mountains at all.

Despite her apparent clueless attitude to her situation, he was wary of her, and admittedly somewhat angry that she had dared sum up the gall to fearlessly navigate a handful of Horde territories and settlements. The connections the Darkspear tribe had with Horde were lax at times, and even downright hanging-by-a-thread at others, but territory was something that all trolls found reason to bristle about. They'd been run out of enough homes to know, and this human girl, sweating in her armor and pussyfooting pathetically from the sand in her greaves, reminded him painfully of this.

So Zek'jaf watched her struggle with the elder and obviously more powerful reptile, gaining a smug sense of satisfaction that the fight was not leaning in her favor, if nothing else. Her armor was failing her quickly, and the heat of the dry flatlands bore down on her viciously. It took a serious toll, and when the sweat on her palms and fatigue wracking her limbs caused her to drop her sword not once, but twice, he knew it wouldn't be long until she saw her end.

Sure enough, within minutes, she was knocked to the ground and her weapon kicked out of reach. Even if it had been left near her, though, he doubted she would be able to wield it again. He doubted she'd even be able to stand up. Sand shuffled into her clothing and shifted between her splayed fingers. Her weakened condition duly acknowledged, the monstrous basilisk brutally slashed at her struggling body with its talons, tearing gashes through her cloak and into her skin, marring the side of her neck, and staining a good portion of her with fresh, warm blood. As she tried to fumble away from him, grasping fingers into the loose ground, that damned ubiquitous sand peppered her injuries, making her cry out in pain for the second time. To whom she was crying out, he wasn't sure.

Zek'jaf settled back on his haunches, observing the basilisk sniff her and then nibble at her unmoving arm. He was witnessing the death of a human, and it made him feel equal parts satisfied and unsettled. Satisfied, because this human girl was receiving her just desserts: How many of his troll brethren had she killed in her lifetime? Just _today?_ And unsettled, because he hadn't any idea of this was true. What if she'd just strayed accidentally far into Horde territory, skirting the contested territories too carelessly? Human paladins, as far as he was aware, focused almost solely on the eradication of the undead. It was entirely likely that she'd never harmed a Darkspear in her life, or even encountered one. Her lacking knowledge of the workings of this beast—strike the underbelly, the _underbelly—_and seemingly naïve and inexperienced footwork was a testament to this.

The more he thought on this, the more the Horde's—specifically Thrall, and his willingness to cooperate with the benign Alliance members—influence on him bubbled to the surface of his subconscious. He was beginning to feel _sympathy_ for her, someone who was almost certainly undeserving of it. But all of the what-ifs raced through his head, even as the basilisk sunk teeth into her, wholly intent on eating his fill and leaving her carcass to dry in the searing sunlight. What if it was all an unfortunate accident? What if she'd been kidnapped and then dumped out here, left to fend for herself? She was so weak and helpless. How could she even have gotten so far on her own? What if she died before he could take action?

Something brief and fleeting caused him to feel a sting of guilt, or maybe just a wary sense of nostalgia. His father was talking to him, then, and they were all speaking in hushed tones, and a friendly stranger with cropped blond hair and a thick beard was patting him gently on the head.

If it was alright by his father, then it would be alright by him. How much harm could he cause anyway? Suddenly he felt a lot less like it was a mistake and a lot more like it was a simple favor.

Pulling daggers out of their holsters at his thighs, Zek'jaf scrambled out of hiding, shooing the beast from the defenseless girl. It turned its ire on him, but he slew it before it could truly enlighten him to the extent of its anger. It managed to taste a mouthful of his flesh once, but the bite mark hardly even drew blood. He didn't think twice on it and knelt in front of the female, who now lay on sand that was crimson and sticky.

She laid partially facedown in the sand, her hand, loosely fisted and drawn up near her shoulder, occasionally clenching. Blood from a previously unnoticed head injury had dripped into her eyes, smearing the sclera pinkish-red. She looked a damn mess, and at this point, he wasn't sure he could even do anything for her.

Idly, he tapped the gold band on her left ring finger. She inhaled sharply, and with what seemed like a final burst of strength, drew her hand away from him. The action startled him, and he'd danced backwards and away from her body, but with her still again, he once again advanced.

"You're _real_ fucked up, mon," he drawled in Orcish, not bothering to hide his amusement. His next comment was said in whatever Common he hadn't forgotten. "How'd you get this far all by your lonesome, eh?"

As expected, she didn't respond. Her eyes, though, blue set in the backdrop of streaked, flooding red, stayed trained on him. Her breaths were shallow and ragged.

He sucked his teeth, scanning the area around them. The reptile's corpse lay a few feet from them, already attracting all manner of insects and buzzards, and he could see a few more scavengers in the distance.

"Eat me no, harm nothing," she husked, in horrible, broken Orcish. Zek'jaf actually raised his brow at this. First: She knew Orcish? And second: Why didn't she just use Common, since he clearly understood and spoke it? Still, she was a pretty lucky character, he figured, to have not only been rescued from the impatient claws of death, but to have stumbled upon (or _been _stumbled upon _by)_ a troll who didn't practice cannibalism and held no real ostensible grudges toward her race. Even though, by all accounts and purposes, barring pasts and the figures that haunted them, he probably should.

"I've no desire ta eat you," he said in Common, shrugging.

She spoke no more after this, but never took her eyes off of him, watching him intently. Even when he pulled cloth out of his bag and bandaged what wounds he could, dusting the sand out of the lacerations on her neck, she didn't even flinch. Shock, no doubt, and with this in mind, he picked her unceremoniously up, marginally mindful of her injuries.

So where was he to go now? There was no way he'd make it to the Alliance settlement in the mountains with the girl in tow. Even if he could fend off the beasts that would surely be drawn by the smell of her fresh blood, there was a zero chance of him making it unnoticed. Tauren and orc shamans patrolled the mountains constantly, and even the rare troll hunter loitered about, thanks to Malaka'jin and its small wealth of his brethren. It was a great place to buy and sell leathers, but not such a great place for a human girl to recover from wounds.

Desperately, he racked his mind for other Alliance settlements in the area, but he knew of virtually none that were reachable. Ashenvale was absolutely out of the question. If he got anywhere near the settlements, night elves would be on him like flies to a corpse. Sure, they'd figure out that he had an injured Alliance in his care, but only after they'd killed him. Shoot first, ask questions later. He couldn't very well just drop her off there, either—the first stray wolf or forest bear that lumbered across her would have a heyday. Small Alliance camps peppered The Barrens, but he still came across the same problem: If he got anywhere near, they would kill him on-site. He was a skilled rogue, and proficient in the art of running and hiding in the shadows, but it would be near impossible to do with this very limp and very vulnerable girl in his care.

He grumbled to himself under his breath about stupid decisions and stupid memories and stupid, _stupid _feelings of paying off the debts of others, but it was definitely too late now. She was already comfortably situated in his arms, bleeding onto his chest and blowing warm breath across his right bicep. He was in too deep to leave her, despite just picking her up. And besides, he could hear the hiss and shuffle of oncoming basilisks, snaking their way to him and the blood scent through the sand.

He clicked his tongue, and Leb, his raptor mount, hopped out from behind an outcropping of rocks. The raptor stopped when he noticed the girl in his arms, sniffed the air in disdain, and turned his tail defiantly toward Zek'jaf.

"Leb, we don't got time for this," Zek'jaf growled, switching to Orcish seamlessly, clicking his tongue again. The raptor turned only slightly toward him, his dull hide seeming almost brilliant in the bright sun. "Unless you wanna fight the manner of brutes an' fiends headin' here, that is."

Leb, quite the coward when it came to fighting, but a steadfast mount and a stellar beast of burden, hastened back toward Zek'jaf, lowering his head obediently.

"Good boy," Zek'jaf cooed, laying the human across Leb's shoulders and then hoisting himself into his saddle. "I'll give you a treat when we get back ta Orgrimmar. Take us there quick, now."

Quick, he knew, meant a matter of hours, but it didn't weigh much on his mind. He'd been on his way home anyway, after having returned from a hunting venture, in which he'd gathered several fine leathers. Leb knew the way by his cold-blooded little heart, following the curving road through the northernmost tip of The Barrens, and then rushing over the bridge toward Orgrimmar. When they would pass by a caravan of goblins or even a lone tauren walking along the road, Zek'jaf would instruct him to ride just out of sight, returning to the road only when the coast was clear. The journey was overall successful, with Zek'jaf closely monitoring the human girl's condition. She didn't seem to get better or worse, which was good news. If she died on the way there, he'd feel stupid, and would be fairly duty-bound to conduct some fashion of proper burial for her. He was trying to remember the exact impromptu burial rites briefly explained to him in his training when Leb stopped abruptly, not much more than a mile out of the capital city of Orgrimmar.

Zek'jaf patted him and climbed off, taking the girl with him. "Run off ta the keep, now," he instructed, and Leb chanced one more affectionate snuggle against Zek'jaf's arm and a scornful snort in the girl's direction before bounding off to rest.

Feeling lost and more than a little puzzled, Zek'jaf stared at the gates of the city, looming in the distance. Sneaking in would be no easy task. It would be difficult to get around the guards patrolling the fences, but the worst would be steering through the watchful denizens. Luckily enough, he _was_ a rogue and also a nearly lifelong resident of Orgrimmar, and if he knew anything, it was how to sneak in the backdoor. He'd come to Orgrimmar as a young teenager with his mother, an only child, his father having been killed in one of the many invasions of his homeland. He'd often slip out into the city when his mother went to sleep and marvel at the bustling nightlife, and then take one or two or six friends out of the city gates undetected. Together they'd find a nice spot where the moon was full and the stars were smiling gaily at them, and they'd drink their fill of the finest alcohol Zek'jaf could swindle, stumbling none-too-gracefully home.

He traced a route to one of the only gaps in the monolithic tusk-like pillars that herded Orgrimmar. Once in, assuring that no one had seen him enter, he decided on his destination and set to it, tucking the girl's arms in so that they didn't catch on anything as he ran.

He bounded over shops and stalls, bouncing on tent material pulled taut, slipping between support columns, torches, and other manner of obstacles. More than once he had to quickly stow the body of the human paladin, waving off the inquiring stares of the guards and explaining how he had to find a stiff drink this instant (to which the men chuckled at)_,_ or how he needed to find a gift for his ill younger sister's birthday immediately (to which the women swooned at). Most of the orc guards seemed to accept this, though the occasional troll would loiter around him to see just what exactly he was up to. It was at these times that he would surreptitiously glance back at where the girl was hidden, making sure not even a toe of her battered greaves was visible to anyone.

Near enough to the Valley of Wisdom that he could almost taste it, he darted through underground walkways that were hardly used, dark, and dingy. The Valley of Wisdom was virtually always empty, ironically enough, and he knew just the place where he could hide the girl. The closer he came to the endpoint of his journey, the more excited he became, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. If the girl had been conscious, he was sure she'd be able to hear it.

He hopped up the side of a dirt incline, straight toward a hut adorned with bright plumage, silk ribbons, burnished beads, and other manner of eye-catching baubles. Hurdling through the leather flap of the familiar, lavishly decorated apothecary, he dumped the half-dead girl into a pile of various folded cloth, neatly hidden in a convenient alcove. After making sure that, yes, she was indeed still breathing, though barely, and assuring that he was as well, he made his way into the backroom, where a female troll with enviable dark blue skin sat mixing liquids. As always, he felt a brief trickle of jealousy, self-conscious about his own light-cobalt tint, but it was gone in a flash.

At Zek'jaf's brash intrusion, the woman dropped the vial she was holding, and a greenish, somewhat gelatinous substance spattered the floor, burning through the opulent interwoven rug and into the dirt beneath it.

Zek'jaf, momentarily forgetting his original mission, backed way, way up.

"Zek'jaf, ya great bumblin' fool! Look what ya've done!"

"What is this mess you're servin' ta innocent citizens of Orgrimmar?" he nearly squawked, wincing down at the sizable hole in the rug. "Your crazy medicines will kill us all, mon!"

Standing up, she poked him hard in the chest, scowling darkly and completely missing the fine layer of blood that now darkened his leather armor. "My 'crazy medicines' are what's _savin'_ us! Now what do ya t'ink you're doin', burstin' into my shop and spoilin' my supplies?"

Once again focused on the task at hand, Zek'jaf swept her thick finger away, only half noting that her fingernails had been painted black and polished until they shone. She was really starting to pay more attention to her looks—much more so than when they were young. "I need your help, Zul-kraa."

Scoffing, Zul-kraa turned around, her fanciful, burgundy apothecary's robes fluttering, the seams and edges glinting gold in the dim light of the backroom. She set to cleaning up the acidic substance, first pouring a small container of dirt on it, and then patting it with a steel trowel. "You're always wantin' my help," she muttered bitterly. "Always 'Zul-kraa, lend me six gold,' and 'Zul-kraa, give me a discount,' and 'Zul-kraa, set my broken leg.'"

"I know, Zuly, I ask you too many favors, but I'm bein' selfless this time, mon."

She grunted derisively at him and began to sweep up the mess, scolding him in Zandali and occasionally dotting the lecture with her heavily accented Orcish. Zek'jaf briefly ignored her in favor of sneaking off to check on the girl, who was still breathing and still motionless, but he returned in time to hear her chide him with, "And don't ya go givin' me no 'But I'm bein' selfless, Zuly!' nonsense! Ya ain't got a selfless bone in your body!"

Deciding that straightforwardness was probably the best route in this situation, Zek'jaf grabbed her by her arms to still her. Troll females tended to not take kindly to physical firmness from males, but it was so rare that Zek'jaf was angry or in any way physical that Zul-kraa immediately stilled. In grabbing her, he'd upset her hood, and it slipped off of her head to settle compliantly atop her shoulders. Her eyes, bright ocher and focused, were wide.

He felt awkward for holding her so long, and so he continued. "Zul-kraa, I'm tellin' the truth. I found a girl in the Stonetalon Mountains—almost dead, she was."

Seemingly forgetting his sudden physical contact with her, she brushed him off. "Why didn't ya say so? Bring her ta me; I'll fix her up for ya."

"She's not a troll."

Again, Zul-kraa abruptly stopped being busy. She hesitated in her speech. "Orc?"

"No."

"Blood elf?"

He shook his head hurriedly.

Again, she hesitated. "I ain't got experience treatin' undead or tauren. Neetya knows a t'ing or two 'bout t'em, though."

"I can't bring her ta Neetya, Zuly," he said quietly, and his troll accent, once heavy during his adolescence on the much harsher Orcish language, seemed almost non-existent. No, he absolutely couldn't bring her to Neetya. For the sake of not only the girl's, but also for his and Zul-kraa's.

Zul-kraa put two obstinate, thick hands on her hips. "You're actin' all strange, Zek'jaf. What've ya gotten yaself into t'is time?"

He chewed on the inside of his lip, moving his jaw so that his tusks, curving inward and embarrassingly smaller than average, shifted back and forth. It was a nervous habit, and he knew that Zul-kraa could see it by the way she dropped her hands to her side and took a step toward him. "Jus' follow me," he finally managed.

He led her out from the backroom and into the middle of the shop, shuffling around newly delivered merchandise and colorful display sets of salves and herbs and bottles to the alcove. He was definitely starting to regret this—much more so than on the way here. He supposed if things went too bad, he could always turn her in to Thrall, or let her loose at the border of Ashenvale when she recovered. The night elves would take her in with open arms and give her appropriate accommodations. If worse came to worst, he could just say he was helping stimulate the black market economy of troll cannibalism by bringing in some fresh human meat—a delicacy to some.

Once again, Zul-kraa flew into a catty rage, putting her hands to her head and fisting her braided, violet hair. "Ya've ruined all the cloth! Ya break everyt'ing ya touch! Get your bleedin' blood elf off'a my cloth!"

"I already said she's no blood elf!"

Hastily, he scooped the girl into his arms, careful not to squeeze her frame too hard, Zul-kraa fretting over her ruined wares all the while. "I should kick ya outta my shop, Zek'jaf! Kick ya out an' never let ya back!"

"Zuly—"

"—Ya cost me hundreds 'a gold a year, an' ya never even offer ta help me!"

_"Zuly—"_

"—I should'a told my dear ol' mother ta keep ya as far away from me as possible! Ever since we was whelps, ya've caused me nothin' but trouble an' grief!"

Sighing dramatically, he waited until she turned around, her tiny female tusks twisting defiantly around her lips—something he'd always found undeniably adorable. But her pouting face fell to one of horror and then dismay, and, for once since Zek'jaf had known her, she was rendered unable to speak.

"I found a—"

_"—human,"_ Zul-kraa finished for him, softly, her voice subdued in a way that was rare for her. "Ya brought a human ta my shop."

"I brought her for you ta help her," he said, desperate to justify his actions, which seemed foolish, dangerous, and even mildly selfish in retrospect. "She was almost killed by one of the basilisks."

"Ya should've left her ta die!" Zul-kraa hissed, keeping her voice down. She hurried to the front of the shop, checked around for stragglers, and then secured the leather flap to the frame with steel fasteners. She lit several more torchlights as she scurried into the backroom, beckoning for Zek'jaf to follow.

He did as asked, setting the human paladin on the table where Zul-kraa had previously been conducting her apothecary chemistry. The giant troll table dwarfed the human, who was stretched completely out. Neither her head nor her feet reached any end of the table.

"Why did ya do it?" Zul-kraa questioned, the torchlight casting shadows across the both of them, intensifying her expression of confusion and betrayal. "Why did ya save her?"

"I couldn't jus' leave her ta die. I don't even know how she got as far as she did."

For a split second, Zul-kraa's harsh features softened, and she apparently found it difficult to look him in the eye. "Ya got a misplaced sense of liability, Zek. Ya don' have ta finish what—"

Very much so disliking where the conversation was headed, he cut her off abruptly, satisfied when her eyes narrowed and her lips set into a thin line. "It don' matter what I have ta finish or not, an' it ain't anyone's concern." The edge on Zul-kraa's tone returned with a wild vengeance, and he was grateful that he'd avoided delving into territory best left untouched.

"Why do ya t'ink she was so far into Horde land, then? T'ink she was jus'…jus' _adventurin'?_ Ya know how humans be."

_Most humans, _a small portion of his mind supplied, but he pushed it far back into a place where it would hopefully never resurface. "I don't think so. She looked lost, an' no one as weak as her would've wandered into the mountains alone an' willin'ly. She wasn't even goin' toward the peak."

"How is a so-said 'innocent, ignorant' human ta know what the mountains be like, or even t'is part 'a Kalimdor? Use ya brain, Zek! No humans is friends 'a trolls."

"But they be friends of the orcs?" he argued, effectively quieting his female counterpart. He turned back to the girl and ran a ragged, shaking hand through his dark hair. It looked black in the room, but was a rich navy in proper light. One thing to be proud of, at least. "Enough 'a this. Can you heal her, or do I have ta try myself? I picked her up, an' I carried her with Leb all the way here. For now, I have an obligation ta her."

For a long while, Zul-kraa only stared at the immobile girl, assessing the situation and curling her hands into her robes. Zek'jaf listened to the crackling of the torches that sparsely decorated the walls, and then to the slight wind blowing past the canvas exterior of the shop. Only rarely did he glance at the human on the table, feeling awkward, uncomfortable, and almost completely at the mercy of Zul-kraa's compassion. The blood on the paladin had long since dried by now, and it crusted around the corners of her eyes and the creases of her neck. He wondered at what exact point she had closed her eyes. When they traveled through The Barrens, past the prides of giant cats and lonesome, roaming Stormhides? Or maybe when he snuck past hundreds of her mortal enemies in Orgrimmar, his own kind included? His stomach gave a weak lurch.

"Da only patients I be treatin' like her is blood elves, ya know. I don' know if I can help her."

He moved the girl's hair away from the wounds on her neck, surveying the depth of the gash there. His next words were earnest. "You can try."

With a sigh as heavy as the human's mail armor, Zul-kraa began to gather her supplies, pulling pre-made bandages from a wooden chest as well as various healing ointments and bottles of unidentifiable liquids. Some looked absolutely vile, and the smell of a particularly rancid-looking bottle of tonic had Zek'jaf retching. She pulled out the cork, and the liquid fizzed and bubbled frantically.

"Take da girl's clothes off, Zek. She's hurt bad." The command and statement, paired together, sounded sour to Zek'jaf, as though she didn't want to dirty herself by touching a _human, _of all things. He couldn't blame her, really, but figured it to be something of an overreaction.

He did as told, not voicing a word of displeasure or discontent. He realized the favor Zul-kraa was doing him, even if he himself didn't know why he'd made an attempt to save the human or what he was going to do with her after she had either healed or died. He felt ashamed, though, and angry at himself, and he stoically stripped layers of mail from her body, stewing in his thoughts and coming up with elaborate plans to apologize to Zul-kraa.

A bit of mail near the human's knee had pressed against bare skin, and it had turned her pale flesh a dingy copper color from wear and rust. She'd obviously been traveling for a while, and had either fallen into a body of water or been furiously rained upon. When he peeled her cloth underclothes off, sticky in some places and stiff in others from blood and sweat and sand, he couldn't help but inspect her scarcely seen, intact human anatomy. He hardly ever got a good look at humans outside of battle and a few goblin texts on them, and he felt as though he was of a very few in his race and his Horde sidings to view something like this. Her skin equaled the fairness of the blood elves, but was faintly tanned in places that often saw the sun. The flesh of her thighs was thick, if not dirtied from days of unaided journeying, and the curve of her hipbones were barely outlined under the thickness of her build. Humans females were stockier than the blood elves, and nowhere near as limber, but not nearly as muscular as the orc or troll females; it was something like the build of a shorter night elf.

"Stop oglin' an' finish undressin' the girl," Zul-kraa spat in unconcealed contempt.

He scoffed. "I was makin' mental notes on the human anatomy, not _oglin'."_

"Don'tcha be gettin' no hunger for da human girl, ya hear me? T'is is not'in' but trouble."

Frustrated and feeling like he'd done what he could, he stepped back and let his friend work. She poured the foul-smelling substance onto the girl's larger wounds, which pulled in the sand and debris and then solidified into gelatin. Zek'jaf marveled at the usefulness of this type of potion, even as Zul-kraa murmured curses in Zandali under her breath and swept the gelatin into a steel dish. With her cuts cleaned, she smoothed soothing balm onto the bandages and applied them neatly. She asked for his help once when wrapping a bandage around her ribcage, but was able to finish the job on her own shortly.

Once done, she stepped back, both admiring her quick work and scowling at the human girl. "Zek'jaf, put one 'a da cloth into da cauldron."

He did so quietly, stripping a piece of cloth from a bolt and setting it into the cauldron. Inside the cauldron was simple boiling water. He knew immediately what it was for, and after a moment passed, he retrieved the cloth with tongs, wrung it out, and handed it to Zul-kraa.

She pressed the cloth against the smaller cuts that lined the human's body, cleaning her along the way, and even going so far as to remove rust stains. When she was finished, she handed it back to Zek'jaf, who put it in a basket with other soiled linens.

The human on the table was not the human he had rescued from the mountains' base. With her body mostly clean of dirt and oil marks from the armor, her skin looked even paler. The red gashes of newly cleaned scrapes stood in stark contrast, as well as the blue-green and purple-black bruises that freckled her. Her brown hair, collarbone-length with a slight curl at the ends, was still matted in places with blood, but he figured she could take care of that when she woke up. _If _she woke up.

Zul-kraa moved methodically about the room, putting away her materials and straightening chairs, desks, and paperwork. She was positively a-flutter, as opposed to the human paladin, who lay utterly still with the exception of her chest and abdomen. They rose and fell very slowly, and if he listened well enough, Zek'jaf could hear the faint sound of something gurgling in the back of her throat. He brought this to Zul-kraa's attention, but she dismissed it, saying she couldn't hear anything.

"Could be da death rattle," she'd said around a shake of her head, rolling a parchment and tying a red ribbon around it gingerly. "I don' t'ink t'is girl's got long ta live. Wasted my supplies on da dead because 'a you, Zek."

A rarely experienced and long-forgotten feeling of failure snaked through his insides, and he could feel shame burning through him. It was true. He shouldn't have picked her up in the first place, no matter what his conscience told him, and no matter what any unpaid dues suggested. This girl was not the blond stranger who brought he and his mother gifts from foreign lands and traded war stories with his father. Regardless of all this, she'd been on the brink of death. She was lucky to have survived the trip to Orgrimmar, and he had doubts that she'd survive the night. The blood or other secretions in her throat was a testament to this: Internal bleeding was not something Zul-kraa was equipped to handle—very few were, in fact—and it was likely that she would die, even if the sound _wasn't_ the death rattle. He had no excuse for saving her beyond his own selfish curiosity (why was she so far out and alone?) and a misplaced sense of sympathy (wouldn't he want someone to save him, Horde or not?). In doing so, though, he'd put everyone in Orgrimmar in danger. Confident though he was that the girl was little more than an amateur paladin, a blind follower of the Light who had veered tragically off of her set path, he still didn't know for sure that she presented no imminent threat to him, his people, or the other citizens of this city.

She seemed to notice his anxiety, and with a sigh, she moved to check on the girl, opening her mouth and tilting her head for better lighting. Zek'jaf felt oddly apprehensive for the diagnosis. Zul-kraa's announcement would mean the difference between the girl dying and living, essentially, or, more importantly to his staggering pride, his success or his failure.

She rolled her eyes after a moment. _"Allergies," _she spit. "Da girl has a stuffy nose. She's snorin'." She turned in a huff, returning to her busy work.

Feeling emotionally drained and needing a break from all of this hectic running about, Zek'jaf excused himself, much to the disapproval of Zul-kraa, who informed him that he needed to find her a place to stay, because she sure as hell wasn't staying in _her _shop. He breathed fresh air outside of the shop that wasn't tinted with medical supplies and incense. He needed to walk, though, and clear his head—formulate plans of action, plans of inaction, plans of _plans._ First and foremost, he needed a place for the girl to stay. He lived on his own in a veritable hovel in the northeast part of Orgrimmar, but it was in a clustered area with many people. Few would be out this late, but he didn't want to take chances.

He walked through the underground tunnels, around shops locking up their wares and blowing out torches, and through groups of milling late-night people. The tavern-goers had spilled outside, and they shambled drunkenly, cheerfully about, slapping their knees and shouting in Orcish. He caught a few rough words of Zandali here and there and what might have been the grunts of Taur-ahe, but paid no attention to it.

He came to the keep at last, treading softly past the mounts tethered for the night. The raptor pens were at the back, far removed from the other animals who did not own sharp teeth or claws to fight back with. Most of the raptors were sleeping, though some scuffled around their spacious stalls, kicking up bones and the leftovers from their dinners. Two larger raptors, settled in a corner in their own pen, their hides mottled and thick, nuzzled each other affectionately. He hadn't realized it was breeding season for them.

Leb lay quietly in his own stall, not tethered to anything. He was intelligent and trustworthy enough to pen himself up and not leave the keep unaccompanied. When Zek'jaf approached, he immediately stirred, rising to his feet and opening his wide, razor-toothed maw at him. It mimicked a smile, and Zek'jaf laughed, petting him warmly.

"Told you I'd give you a treat, eh, boy?" he teased, digging through a pouch at his hip for the spiced jerky. There was little else Leb loved more in the world than spiced jerky, and he snapped it up excitedly. The gnashing of his teeth woke the raptor in the stall beside him, who screeched angrily, but Zek'jaf scowled at this obviously superior raptor and Leb quieted his eating.

"Don't pay him no mind," Zek'jaf mumbled. "Jus' angry 'cause his master doesn't bring him no jerky." Leb cooed at him, swallowing the last of the seasoned, dried meat, and licked Zek'jaf's hand with his thin, pointed tongue.

The raptor in the next stall huffed at this, lying down and facing away from the two of them.

Zek'jaf spent a few more moments with Leb, sitting on the stall's gate and petting his scaly head. If Zul-kraa wouldn't take the human girl in, he'd have to give her lodging at his own home. It wouldn't be difficult to sneak her in—especially if he threw a cloak over her and claimed she was a blood elf acquaintance who'd had a little too much to drink. It was keeping her _inside _and away from prying eyesthat was the problem. How would she react when she woke? Would she scream, try to run? He hoped against all things that she'd be as civil to him as he was to her. He didn't want any more problems on his hands than he already had.

When he felt as though it was getting to be too late to stay out, and too late to keep Zul-kraa worried, he tugged the saddle off of Leb and hung it on its rack. He also unsnapped the large saddlebags from the belt over Leb's rump. He didn't want to leave all of the leather inside of them in Leb's pen, but had no choice. He'd have to retrieve them later tonight or early in the morning. For now, the girl's removal from Zul-kraa's shop took precedence.

"Leb, don't let anyone near the bags, hear me? Not even your feeder. I don't want no one messin' with my things."

Leb made a noise of acknowledgment, and, satisfied, Zek'jaf tethered him for the night. It seemed such a cruel thing to do to the loyal raptor, but it was the rules of the keep, and he had nowhere else to keep Leb if they were kicked out. Leb curled his body around the bags, settling in for sleep.

Zek'jaf sat for only a moment longer, listening to the sleeping sounds of the surrounding animals, but then decided that it was in his best interest to return to the shop. The longer he left the human in Zul-kraa's care, the more he was indebted to the apothecary. He winced inwardly at the thought. It was never a good thing to be indebted to Zul-kraa. He couldn't count the times she'd had him clean the medical grime caked to her work tables, or scrub the magical residue off of her rarely used training dummies. She'd trained to be a shaman once, but the behind-the-scenes life of an apothecary coupled with Neetya's insistence had changed her mind.

The walk back to the shop went significantly faster than the walk to the keep—much faster than he would have liked. Little had changed in how many people wandered the streets and what percentage of them were inebriated, but it seemed that time halved itself, and before he could really still his rapidly beating heart, he was already standing in front of the dirt incline.

A great shuffling of dirt occurred to the left of the shop, and his stomach bottomed out. Neetya, the owner of the shop and head apothecary, had built a space beside the shop to house her massive mount, a woolly mammoth appropriately named Colossa. It snorted quietly to itself and whipped its trunk to and fro, turning slowly and lumbering to the back of the stall. It had only been recently put away, if the fluttering of its ears and antsy demeanor said anything.

The shop was still and silent, so he figured nothing explosive had happened yet. Of course, the undead woman just might have already killed the paladin. Again, he felt a fresh surge of embarrassment. Neetya would think him a fool, and he couldn't say he wasn't deserving of the title.

He palmed aside the leather flap and found it unfastened. The front of the shop had been cleaned and tidied. Velvet curtains fell in bright red streaks over the shelves of glass goods, while the cabinets holding herbs and such had been closed and locked. The incense had been extinguished as well as all of the remaining torchlights. It all felt so familiar to him, like a home-away-from-home that might have smelled a little too much like herbs, salves, and frivolous fragrances. He could see touches of Zul-kraa everywhere he looked: beads and feathers woven into tapestries of ancient medicine-people, jars stacked in displays where the colors complemented each other perfectly. In stark contrast, Neetya's touches were much more mechanical and organized. Vials of medicine sat stiffly in racks, with little to no decorations adorning them. Her elixirs were laid out efficiently, stating the name and the price only, whereas Zul-kraa's displays created wreaths of herbs and pyramids of empty medical sacks. He absently wondered whose displays sold more, but was distracted when he heard muffled voices.

Neetya was in the shop, in the back, with Zul-kraa and the human. Whether that human was intact or not was up in the air. Zek'jaf mentally steeled himself for the berating that was to come next.

He stepped sheepishly into the backroom, ducking under the low overhang of the arching doorway. The leather flap for this was tied back in a golden-tasseled drawstring, where before it had only been hastily shoved to the side. Neetya's thing for orderliness tended to extend to every little thing.

The empty table caught his eye first and foremost, and he glanced about the room as inauspiciously as possible, trying to catch a sign of the paladin. He saw Zul-kraa with her back to him, her hands on her hips, and Neetya beside her, one arm crossed over her abdomen and her fingers stroking her own cheek languidly.

He coughed to announce his presence, though the two women had probably noticed him long before he'd set foot inside the shop. Neetya motioned for him to draw nearer with the bones of her exposed fingertips, never moving her fixation from the object in front of her. Zul-kraa glared a hole through him the whole way, and when she stepped aside to make room for him, he realized what they'd been poring over.

The human lay on a slab of polished steel normally reserved for patients. Her body was arranged in the anatomical position, palms up and feet approximately shoulder-width apart. Zul-kraa's learning had a tendency to rub off on the people around her, himself included. He began to explain himself to Neetya, but she held up a hand to silence him.

"Zul-kraa has already explained the presence of this human," she said simply. "And I have healed her to the best of my abilities."

Zek'jaf was dumbstruck. "You…_healed _her?"

"Yes." She glanced at him, her glowing eyes eerily curious behind a matted fringe of grey hair. She picked idly at a portion of her cheek where bone seemed to be clawing desperately at her skin, and Zek'jaf looked away. "She probably would not have died. But Zul-kraa mentioned that you seemed eager for her survival."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Jus' seemed like a waste, savin' her an' all an' then havin' her die," he mumbled, feeling that familiar shame creep up his insides.

"Ya can be sure that da human is a waste," Zul-kraa bit, staring at Zek'jaf none too happily.

"Well, I wouldn't say that," Neetya replied, smiling only slightly. Her skin had a sickly yellowish tint naturally, but in the low light, it seemed even more noticeable. Her sharp hipbones broke through of her thin skin, and the place where the humerus, radius, and ulna bones connected to make her elbow showed likewise. When she moved her arm, he could see bits of leftover tendon and muscle flex and stretch. It was all very unnerving, but Zul-kraa didn't appear fazed by it at all.

At length, Neetya began to discuss the bones she'd mended, and as if to demonstrate her powers, she drew a hand encased in muted green light over a wide nick on the human's exposed kneecap. It healed before Zek'jaf's eyes, skin stitching together in a pattern that resembled burlap. A small amount of fresh blood remained, and Neetya smeared it with her fingertip before bringing the finger to her mouth for a taste. Her cannibalistic ways stayed heavily with her. That wasn't to say, of course, that trolls had forgotten their cannibalistic ways. It was still a practice among Darkspears, though in the significant minority, to reap the benefits of another's loss. However, Neetya's display was one of conceit, as if being a living corpse was something to be heralded. Once again, Zul-kraa was wholly undisturbed.

"She cannot stay here," Neetya stated, and Zek'jaf once more listened to the conversation. "I have exhausted any charity I am willing to give to the Alliance, let alone a human _paladin." _The word "paladin" was said with such venom that Zek'jaf had to wonder why she'd helped the girl in the first place. "I suppose I do not need to tell you that she is your responsibility."

"Nah, mon," he said somewhat dejectedly. And then, quieter: "I know that."

Silence reigned for a pregnant moment, and Zek'jaf busied himself by wondering how he'd get her to his home. She was almost naked, and having to carry her the entire way remained a chore he was not excited about in the least.

"Your good deed can only extend so far," Neetya said gently, her voice growing hoarse, following Zek'jaf's gaze to the unconscious girl on the table. "She cannot stay in Orgrimmar for long. She will be caught, and you with her. Show her to an Alliance settlement as soon as she can walk, for your benefit and hers."

Zul-kraa left the room in that instant, and Zek'jaf shifted uncomfortably in his position beside Neetya. He wasn't particularly frightened by her or _any_ undead, really, but Neetya's presence in specific made him uneasy in ways he couldn't concretely pinpoint. She was nice enough, as he'd witnessed, and charismatic and intelligent, to boot, but knowing her bones poked through her skin and knowing she was missing a few organs and the mystery of just how she was walking around when the stench of decay and death clung to her despite the heavy incense bore down on his mind. He was inquisitive if he was anything, but this was one secret he just didn't have the gall to figure out.

His troll companion returned shortly, carrying a spare woolen blanket and a beaker of whitish liquid. "Da elixir increases magic potency," she explained to Zek'jaf, and Neetya smiled in something that resembled approval. "It feels a bit like da blood elf magic, but not exactly. It won' fool no one for long, though. Ya have to be quick, Zek."

He nodded and watched her pour a humble amount of the liquid over the girl, spreading it evenly about her chest. He felt what she had been talking about immediately. It was strikingly similar to the feeling of blood elf magic—powerful, but not unrestrained, and with the barest tinge of malevolence—but could in no way compare. Anyone within three feet of him for too long would instantly sense something was wrong.

"Pick her up," Zul-kraa instructed, and Zek'jaf did so, scooping the girl into his arms. Her head rolled heavily against his chest, and he could see Zul-kraa sneer as she laid the blanket over her. "Don' be makin' no stops, now. The elixir lasts for ten minutes an' ten minutes only."

"She should recover fully in five days' time," Neetya declared, just as Zek'jaf had begun to leave. "However, she will be ready to travel and walk on her own in three. These are, of course, estimates. Use your own judgment. But above all, do not keep her in the city for longer than is absolutely necessary."

"And ya owe me twenty silver for that elxir!" Zul-kraa reminded him angrily. He almost laughed, and was thankful for it.

"Thank you," Zek'jaf said, looking to both Neetya and Zul-kraa. The undead woman simply smiled and removed her crocheted hood, turning to set it on a shelf full of clothing behind her. Zul-kraa scoffed, rolled her eyes, and turned likewise around.

He set off from the apothecary shop at a quick walk, deliberately avoiding over-crowded places. The fumes of the elixir, concentrated mostly on her chest, gave him a minor ache at the back of his head. He wondered if this was how it felt to be in close proximity to a blood elf for too long, and then wondered instantly what it felt like to be in close proximity to a _troll _for too long. Or, really, if trolls' presences had any effect on people at all. As far as he could tell with the paladin in his care, humans had no presence, or at least not one as heady as that of blood elves and the undead.

He encountered two orc guards strolling leisurely, ever-vigilant for the streets of Orgrimmar, and before he could duck out of sight, they were upon him. The questioning did not last long, however, when Zek'jaf mentioned that the blood elf had contracted a strange disease and he was simply escorting her from the resident apothecaries to her own abode. After mentioning that the disease was highly contagious, the guards backed off, though they shot him wary glances. Their own skin was not worth an investigation into a nobody troll and his ill ward, as it seemed.

Further down the road, a throng of young tauren and orc teenagers came lumbering into sight, and he stooped quickly under an awning, having learned his lesson about swiftness and the act of being cautious, walking close to the side of the buildings. He'd avoided the more heavily populated areas, and so far he'd been lucky. Hopefully they didn't start conversation, because he didn't feel like using the same lie twice.

Perhaps testing his already worn luck, they hardly seemed to notice him. He upped his pace to a light jog, the paladin girl bouncing in his arms. Her arm slipped out from her chest to dangle listlessly, hand and fingers sticking out from underneath the blanket. He tried vainly to put it back, and then decided to continue on when his efforts miserably failed.

The entire way home afforded him an anticlimactic and overall successful trip. The torches along the main walkways stayed lit, and he avoided traveling in these places when he could. The telltale buildings of his house leaned against each other as if for support, and few windows remained lit from the burning of a late-night torch. He stopped for only a moment to lament his inevitable climbing of three flights of stairs. The views out his window were amazing, but this was going to be ridiculous.

Slowly, agonizingly, he made his way up the steps, his calves burning and his knees aching. He made it to the third floor in record time nonetheless, and upon reaching the front of his thick wooden door, he realized his conundrum.

Sighing, he set the girl on the ground and pulled a key from the bare keyring at his side. What followed could only be described as a brief, awkward dance involving himself, the girl, his door, and his key. Finally, though, he managed to get the two of them into his home, and out of sheer exhaustion, he lay her on his bed and took a seat beside her.

It was like owning a full-sized pet. He'd never live this down, and if anyone ever found out, he'd be kicked out of Orgrimmar for sure. Stretching his long limbs, he chanced a glance at her. She was still out cold, with no sign that she'd move anytime soon. "More trouble than you're worth," he grumbled, talking in equal parts to himself, the girl, and his father.

All of these memory trips had made him a little anxious to visit his mother, and he resolved to do so as soon as the girl was out of his hair. He rested only for a moment before he started on putting together the place where the girl would sleep.

He lay an extra sheet and blanket on the ground beside his bed and then set her down on top of that. He was sure it wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't like she had a choice in the matter anyway. He went about his nightly routine of locking the door and undressing quietly and tiredly, and when he fell into bed, he found that sleep came relatively easily.


	2. Chapter II

**Rubicon**

**Chapter II**

**

* * *

**

Where Zek'jaf assumed she would rise with a bang, she awoke with no more than a whimper.

Effectively entangled would accurately describe her situation. She'd obviously tossed and turned in the first few moments of consciousness, and as a result, the blankets and sheets had twisted about her limbs. The cotton shirt she wore pulled too short in the waist, as most of Zul-kraa's garments were wont to do, and it bothered him on wholly different levels that one, he'd recognized it belonged to Zul-kraa, and two, that he hadn't even realized she'd been given the article last night. When she shifted again, the shirt moved so as to expose much more of her bare torso, but he pointedly ignored it. Instead he focused on dressing before she fully woke, taking his dirty chest-piece and cleaning the dried blood from it.

He'd slept disturbingly well last night considering the circumstances, and had really even forgotten the human's presence when he'd first woken. The subtle shifting just beside his bed had reminded him that, yes, there was still a human paladin lying on his creaky wooden floorboards, and it had renewed the feelings of trepidation and anxiety within him. He was going to go bald at this rate, worrying so much over something that he could so easily take care of.

He slipped the leather armor over his head and secured it tight over the thin black shirt beneath it. He put his belt on and strapped his daggers to his thighs, staring at the half-conscious girl with thinly veiled disdain. If he were smart, he'd kill her now and dump her body somewhere. If he were smart, he'd throw her on her ass outside Orgrimmar for the scavengers to feast upon. _If _he were smart, he would never have picked her up in the first place, but _if _was the operative word, and it didn't do him much good to focus on the ifs anyway.

Feeling all of the anger that had mysteriously gone missing the previous night, he toed her injured side with the tip of his boot. She gasped and curled away from the offending boot, and then looked up at him with heavy, sleep-laden eyes. The realization didn't seem to hit her all at once, but in tiny, quick proportions, and the horror on her face increased with each passing second, mixing with the dull aches from her newly mended wounds.

"You almost died at the base 'a the Stonetalon Mountains," he explained curtly, coldly. "I saved you, an' you'll stay here 'til you're fit enough to walk." He surprised himself by how much Common he had maintained.

Recognizing her own language, she squinted at him, making valiant attempts to bring herself to a sitting position. "Why?"

He struggled for an answer. Upset once again with himself and unable to find a viable response to her question, he turned in a huff and opened his cabinets, taking his anger out on a questionably aged loaf of bread. He dug his fingers into it, shifting his tusks back and forth. _He _knew why he'd saved her, and it wasn't just something he could sum up in a few words. Even so, he had a hard time coming to terms with the justification, and he sure as hell wasn't going to tell the human.

When he turned back around, having successfully calmed his rising ire and mangling the tough bread, the girl had managed to sit up, and she clutched her side. It was presumably still sore from either a previous broken bone or a deep cut. He tossed the bread to her, and it landed on the floor somewhere to her left. She alternated between staring at the bread and him in open contempt.

"I'm bein' generous, mon. You best eat that bread 'fore I take it away."

Perhaps feeling too weak to talk, she turned her head away from him and his offer. He could see faint scars on her neck, and she kept her arms folded over her belly, no doubt trying to keep the shirt from showing too much. Her act of defiance aggravated him, but even more so was her desperation for modesty. He suddenly felt the urge to let her know in no uncertain terms just how much of her body he had seen, but finding it largely unnecessary, he dismissed the thought.

"You're hungry. Eat."

She kept faced away from him, her entire body stiff. He'd never understand this. He had rescued her from the cold grip of death; this she _had _to at least be aware of. But there she sat, coiled in his extra blankets and sheets, refusing to acknowledge his presence, his kindness, and the favor he had done her.

When it looked as though she wasn't going to relent, he snapped up the loaf of bread and shoved half into his mouth. She may not have wanted to eat, but he sure did, and stale though it was, it did wonders to soothe his rumbling stomach. He greedily finished it off, informing her that it had been his last loaf, and now she was going to have to wait until he felt like buying more food. He took a water jug down from the same cabinet, and she immediately began to stare at it.

Understanding washed over him as he watched her glance from the jug to his lips and then back to the jug. She had to have been dying of thirst. There was no telling how long she'd been lost under the blinding heat of central Kalimdor. "Thirsty?" he questioned, and though she did not answer, her focused look told him all he needed to know.

He handed this to her, and she gingerly took it from him. After assessing it, assumedly making sure it wasn't poisoned or tainted in any way—he snorted at this—she brought it to her mouth and finished off the contents in five big gulps. She handed it back to him carefully, giving him the flask as someone would give a peace offering to a beast. He rolled his eyes and took it, setting it inside a cupboard.

"Where is the closest Alliance settlement?" he asked, knowing it was something of a longshot. Even if she knew where the Alliance was hiding among the sprawling deserts of Durotar and The Barrens, she would never tell him. Their safety depended on it. If the situation had been reversed, he would have done the same. When no answer came, he sighed and continued. "I won't tell anyone where they be. Unless you rather I let you loose ta fend for yourself?"

"I don't know where any are." Her reply was clipped, with an edge of some emotion that he couldn't quite pinpoint. Desperation, maybe, or helplessness. Shame, however, remained predominant, and he almost felt bad for her.

"I can take you ta Ratchet," he mused, mostly to himself. "Alliance have boats there." He was deluding himself, of course, but it reassured him to think about. Since the day he'd first traveled there, Ratchet had almost been exclusively controlled by Horde. The goblins had no say in anything, and the trade princes that kept it afloat, so to speak, didn't care either way who controlled it—as long as goods flowed in and out. Any Alliance who stepped foot there made quick work of their business, usually either going straight from the entrance to the docks or vice versa. And if anyone caught him fraternizing with her, let alone _escorting _her, he'd have some difficult questions to answer.

Still, he figured, she wasn't his problem anymore once she was in Ratchet. He contemplated this, entertaining himself with thoughts of what he would treat himself to once she was rightfully out of his hair, flagons of ale and unending feasts clouding his thoughts. He deserved it, after all.

"I don't know of Ratchet," the girl said carefully and quietly, and when he glanced at her, he found she was studying him carefully, watching for any sign that he would suddenly change his mind and jump upon her.

"It's a neutral town," he said, somewhat shocked by her change in demeanor: Where before she'd been stubborn and more or less silent, she now seemed entirely open to talking to him. Her shoulders slumped, and she no longer made an effort to pull the cotton shirt to cover her bare skin. Any human—any _person_—who gave up this easily, he figured, was well not worth his time. It was no wonder that she had come so close to death.

She turned her eyes from him, staring instead at the floorboards. "Neutral," she said slowly, as if to test the word on her tongue. "There is no such thing."

Perhaps she was not as naïve as he thought, then.

Regardless, he could not stay and converse with her all day. He had errands to attend to, including retrieving his leathers from the keep, restocking on foodstuffs, and visiting his mother. His mother could wait, but all of the events of yesterday had painfully reminded him of how long it had been since he'd last seen her. There were reasons he stayed away from her. He never left her in anything but a sour mood, though this was no fault of her own.

Annoyed with the negative thoughts creeping upon him, he approached the girl and stood over her. She backed into the side of his bed, wincing when her sore muscles and bones saw use. "I'll be leaving for a bit. You should be gettin' some rest. The more you sleep, the faster you'll be recoverin'." And the faster he'd be rid of her. He left this part out, though, in lieu of gatherin**g** her up, blankets and all, and setting her gently on his bed.

Like the table in the apothecary shop, his bed made her seem much smaller than she actually was. Her eyes were wide with fear, surprise, caution, or some combination of the three. He realized a bit belatedly that she was actually trembling. Even after all he'd done for her—saved her life, let her into his home, offered her food and drink—she was still frightened for her life. In this case it might have been understandable, having come so close to death's cold fingers once before, but the look she gave him was completely unwarranted.

Mercy. She wanted mercy.

He hadn't noticed that he'd put one knee to the mattress after setting her down, hovering above her. It hit him how she must have interpreted it, and he pulled back immediately, equal parts disgusted and embarrassed. The thought had never even crossed his mind, and now that it had, his mood dampened considerably.

"Sleep," he instructed sternly, though she did not move from her position, and he could see that her body remained stiff and tense. "I'll be back soon ta give you food. Now, do I need ta tie you up, or are you gonna stay put?"

"No," she said quickly. "I can't move anyway."

There was enough truth in this statement for him to be assured, and he left the room feeling rather cross, already making plans to return her to Alliance hands come tomorrow.

* * *

The orc was insufferable, and he smelled of ass

Zul-kraa was annoyed.

He pounded his massive fist atop her counter once, making jars of medicine wrapped in brown paper wobble. He lowed himself so that he was nose-to-nose with Zul-kraa. He was obviously using intimidation measures, but she was thoroughly unimpressed, and she crossed her arms tightly, narrowing her eyes.

"If there is a blood elf with a highly contagious disease, they need to be quarantined."

"I already told ya I don' got no records of no diseased blood elf," she bit, mentally damning Zek'jaf to the most painful of deaths possible. And yet, even as this orc guard stood spitting on her in all of his green-faced frustration, she couldn't help but feel worried about him. It wasn't as if he blended particularly well with the crowd, with his light skin and too-small tusks. He was going to be in real trouble if this orc guard, or any of them, for that matter, caught up with him.

"My duty is to protect the citizens," he tried to reason, standing to his full height, "whether from enemy attacks or the spread of a disease." When it was apparent that Zul-kraa would not release any information, the guard glanced at the backroom door. "Where is your superior? I would like to ask her some questions about the nature of this shop."

She bristled at the subtle insult. Did he think she looked unskilled, or that she and Neetya's shop lacked legitimacy? She was a fine apothecary, despite being an apprentice, and this was a damn fine shop. She wanted very desperately to make sure he knew this. She glanced only for a moment at the changing elixirs to her left, staring invitingly at her from the wall-mounted cupboard, her fingers itching to turn him into a frog that she could sweep out of the shop and into the streets. "I'll go fetch Neetya for ya," she answered, not attempting to hide her disdain.

Luckily—for Zul-kraa's benefit or the orc's, she wasn't sure—Neetya was in a particularly good mood. She had been, in fact, since the arrival of the human girl the previous night. The forsaken woman drifted into the anteroom, smiling benevolently at the guard.

"Are you—?" he began, but Neetya cut him off as kindly as possible.

"I am the proprietor of this shop, yes. I understand you have questions for me to answer?"

The orc straightened regally, eyeing her from his head's high perch. In stilted response, Neetya curtsied.

"My name is Lieutenant Dreng. We received complaints of an infected blood elf in the city. Upon further investigation carried out by myself and a small team of city guards, the last known place the blood elf was sighted was exiting your shop, accompanied by a male troll."

Neetya's smile never faltered. Twice, though, Zul-kraa noticed the aggravated twitch of her bony fingers, obscured from the lieutenant's view behind the counter. Zek'jaf was going to have hell to pay for this one, and Zul-kraa reminded herself to be well within earshot when his just rewards were given to him.

"We have not treated any blood elves as of late," Neetya responded coolly, walking out from behind the counter so that she could see all of the lieutenant. Scars crisscrossed his face in faint, angry gashes, and a v-shaped section on the left side of his upper lip had been lost, giving him a sneer to wear perennially. He watched Neetya circle him, his eyes small and set deep into his skull, but focused. The weapons at his belt rattled when he moved.

"Our shop," Neetya continued, propping one of her hips and settling her folded arms across her waist, "is not equipped to treat blood elves. My and my apprentice's knowledge, regrettably, does not extend to the complex makeup of blood elf physiology." She'd always lied beautifully.

"I understand," the orc said, unaffected by the callous gaze Neetya had been sending him. "However, I am under orders to investigate this shop and discover the whereabouts of this blood elf."

The forsaken stepped aside, allowing him into the back of the shop. She followed him, motioning for Zul-kraa to stay in the front. Whether this was to tend to any potential customers or to allow Neetya to handle the investigation, she wasn't certain, but she strained her ears to hear bits of the conversation through the thick drape separating the sections of the shop.

She only caught bits and pieces of Neetya explaining articles to him, and faintly heard the orc sorting none too politely through assortments of flasks, bottles, and jars. Moments passed, possibly ten or more, before the two of them emerged. The orc seemed frustrated, with a line of barely maintained anger wrinkling his brow.

"Expect a return visit in the future," Lieutenant Dreng said stiffly, looking from an unruffled Neetya to Zul-kraa, hands crossed over her chest. "I will report my findings today—" here he paused to correct himself, "—or lack thereof—to my superiors."

Neetya smiled.

He looked only at Zul-kraa now, his eyes seeming hawkish. He snorted as he spoke. "Your friend, the fool troll, should expect a visit as well."

He seemed to linger, waiting for a blistering response from Zul-kraa or a biting remark from Neetya, but neither spoke. Zul-kraa certainly felt her muscles tense and her lips tighten, ready to shout at the orc and defend Zek'jaf, but she kept herself motionless. From behind the counter, Neetya grabbed Zul-kraa's wrist as a bid to keep quiet.

After nothing was spoken and no nervous moves were made by either woman, he exited the shop, turning sideways to fit his large build through the small, rounded frame. He lingered ever longer, just outside of the shop and around its corner, waiting to catch morsels of any muted conversation to follow. Moments passed in slow drips. Only when Neetya released her wrist did Zul-kraa exhale.

Neetya wore a grave, stern expression. "Show me to the dwelling of your troll friend."

* * *

Zek'jaf's mother lived in a carved-out cavity in the side of a red-streaked plateau, not a mile outside of Orgrimmar. Her residence was more of a home than a cave, but more of a hole than a home, and she never seemed to mind it. She had painted the inner walls in the colors of sunset and soft blues, illustrating the bustling city life of Orgrimmar that she had once known. Her furniture was made mostly from white, gnarled wood of the desert trees, but she owned a rocking chair and an end-table made from the dark and porous driftwood of northwestern shores. His father had made the driftwood furnishings for her before he'd died. If he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, Zek'jaf could remember sitting in a too-big rocking chair, atop an overstuffed lavender cushion, rocking back and forth as hard as he could manage.

Now, of course, if he tried to do the same, the rocker would likely crumble. It still supported his mother's weight, though, despite the plumpness of her old age, and this he attributed to his father's master handiwork.

He ducked inside of her home, not immediately seeing her in the living area. The old rocker sat alone, the lavender cushion having been replaced by a sea-foam-blue one, and the end-table beside it held several photographs. Most prominent among these was a large sepia-toned picture of his father, holding a hunter's bow and standing beside a massive wolf, looking imperially at some point beyond the camera's scope. His father's broad shoulders, dark hair, and long, thick tusks painted a picture of a healthy, attractive Darkspear troll. The elegant, intricate, sturdy armor he wore denoted his wealth, and the sheer size and ferocity of his hunting animal told of his skill.

In front of the picture of his father, in a frame too plain and rigid to be native of Kalimdor, was a faintly colored photograph of his mother, father, himself, and the blond man of his childhood. Zek'jaf picked it up inquisitively, studying the man standing between his mother and father, an affectionate arm around the both of them. His height nearly matched his mother's, though his father towered over the man. Even so, he could see that this human man was taller than was average for his race. He wore no armor, but Zek'jaf could plainly see the holsters of daggers at his thighs. And lower still, clutching to the human man's knees, was Zek'jaf, small and vulnerable, his ears limp and floppy and his nose a stubby stump.

"Zek'jaf?" his mother called him, and he set down the picture quickly. "I didn't hear ya come in." She emerged from around a support beam, smiling broadly. Her spectacles made her eyes seem much larger than they were. "Ya got light feet, like always."

Zek'jaf smiled only halfway. "Yeah. Got to, doin' the things I do."

She hummed at him as she hustled into the living room, tidying up by straightening pictures and dusting sand from the squishy rubicund loveseat. "Best not be gettin' into no trouble, Zekky."

He cringed inwardly at the nickname. The human had called him it once, and it had stuck with his family ever since. "I'm not, ma," he promised, taking a seat on the loveseat. "I got somethin' for ya." He handed her a wrapped bundle, brown paper tied with yellow twine. Inside of it was a set of candles, Darkspear insignias and Zandali proverbs painted on the glass. His mother was still violently proud of her tribe, and she showcased this more often than was necessary. She was also unwaveringly allegiant to Thrall and the Horde, with the scenes on her walls illustrating this fact. He took the time to study the paintings as she exclaimed that he didn't need to buy her anything and took her time opening the bundle.

She painted quite well, mimicking that of both ancient cave paintings and contemporary artists. A large mural above three lit lanterns depicted the busy markets of Orgrimmar, and another displayed a group of orc guards in full armor drinking ale. Still another had goblin caravans travelling along with shamanic tauren, bumbling down a path that led to the city.

It was strikingly apparent that she missed living in Orgrimmar. She drew these paintings to surround herself with a feeling of belonging, though it was clear she did not belong at all. The citizens and guards had made this abundantly clear. Anger that he had felt innumerable amounts of time boiled in the bottom of his stomach, but his mother's voice calmed it considerably.

"Lovely, jus' lovely. An' I know where I can put dem." Without rising from her side, Zek'jaf's mother placed two of the candles between the pictures on the end-table. Zek'jaf stared at the placement, looking squarely at the picture of his family and their blond friend.

His mother seemed to catch him, and she stroked the smooth glass of the remaining candles idly. "I miss him sometimes, too, Zek."

He looked away from the picture, slightly embarrassed. "I don't remember him much."

"He was a good _human," _she sighed, struggling with the word "human." "He did right by us. All the time he be bringin' us food from his home, tellin' us stories of when he first met your papa."

Zek'jaf started to grow impatient, feeling angry at the loss of the blond man's presence and angry at the seclusion of his mother. "When did he visit us last?" he asked, shifting uncomfortably.

His mother took a long time to answer, looking down at the candles. Behind her spectacles, she seemed sad, her eyes heavy with grief. "Ages ago." Her voice was very quiet. "Right after your papa passed. Maybe he still alive somewhere."

The last statement shocked Zek'jaf more than it should've, and his heart leapt into his throat. "Pa—my dad?"

She chuckled good-naturedly. "No, silly boy. Your papa be long gone. I be talkin' about da _human. _I t'ink he went home, ta his continent, when Viljami died." As if for emphasis, she glanced longingly at the picture of his father.

"I should get back," Zek'jaf said, just as quietly as his mother. The sour feelings were welling up in him again, and it took all he had in him to push them down.

"T'ank ya for da candles, Zek," she said lovingly, and stood to nuzzle her wrinkled cheek against his tusk. He indulged her affection, and then bid a hasty adieu, walking back to Orgrimmar. The sand he kicked up in his wake floated on the hot air of The Barrens, making a trail behind him. He was being a very poor rogue, but with no threat to his person about, he felt it was acceptable.

Upon walking through the winding passage to Orgrimmar's main thoroughfare, a guard with a face marked with long gashes stopped in his tracks to watch Zek'jaf. The hair on the back of Zek'jaf's neck stood on end, and he quickened toward the crowds. The guard walked a few dozen paces behind him, his pace hurrying as throngs of people surrounded Zek'jaf.

The auction house came into view, and Zek'jaf broke into a swift jog, darting from crowd to crowd and behind stacks of crates and barrels. One glance behind him saw the guard pulling a large battleaxe from his back, running in Zek'jaf's direction, shoving people out of the way as he did.

Zek'jaf began to sprint now, sliding into thin alleys. He wedged himself between two buildings, the small space pressing against his ribcage. It was difficult to breathe, and he struggled to keep his panting quiet. The guard ran a few quick steps past his hiding spot, stopped and then doubled back at a sluggish walk. He stood very near Zek'jaf, now, but seemed not to notice him. Zek'jaf pushed himself further between the buildings.

"Lieutenant?" Another orc came into view, though he was not a guard. He wore leather armor and had no visible weapons. "The colonel has sent for you. He says it is urgent."

The axe-wielding guard brushed him off with a curse. "It's always urgent," he muttered, taking a few last looks around the crowds. He replace the axe at his back and, along with the messenger, disappeared.

Zek'jaf took rapid breaths, breathing out slowly. He waited nearly five minutes to wriggle out from between the buildings, stepping back into the sunlight with a gasp. He placed a hand on his sore ribs and leaned against a lamppost, taking a moment to regain and steady his breathing.

He ducked inside the auction house to remove himself from any further danger, finally feeling relieved among the crowd of people. He wasn't sure why the guard—_lieutenant _guard—had been following him, but he could guess. The human girl at his house probably had something to do with it. Even so, the reason for the guard to have followed him was irrelevant; he'd rather not have any run-ins with Orgrimmar's officials. Especially not today. No, today had not been a good day.

The auction house, as it usually was, bustled with activity and life. Nobody paid him a second glance as they sorted their wares or bid on items. It had always been his favorite building of the city, allowing him to melt unseen into the crowd. He checked on his leathers while he was there, adjusting the price and grumbling under his breath when he saw that he'd been severely undercut by another brazen seller.

His next stop was the bread shop, avoiding guards like they would lop his head off if he was sighted. Perhaps, he mused, thinking back to the way the lieutenant had taken his axe in hand, they would. He gathered enough food to last him and his unplanned ward at least a week, holding two paper bags in each hand, and mapped a route home that would take him away from heavily patrolled areas.

He surveyed the perimeter of his home first, half expecting it to be sanctioned off and guarded by a posse of ill-tempered orcs. Seeing this was not the case, he walked carefully up the stairs, looking in a rather paranoid fashion for anybody waiting to pounce on him and then try him for treason. Bringing a member of the Alliance unbidden into Orgrimmar? To the stocks with you! Bringing a _human _unbidden into Orgrimmar? Have him hanged!

The thoughts occupied him unpleasantly as he opened the door to his room, cursing and spitting under his breath. The door gave way with suspiciously little force, and he saw Zul-kraa on the other side of it, one hand on the opposite doorknob that he had grasped.

"Zuly? What are you doin' here?" He looked around the room, expecting a trap, setting the bags down.

"Get in here," she said with a roll of her eyes. "'Less you want ta showcase your new pet?"

He snorted derisively, crinkling his nose, which Zul-kraa seemed to more or less approve of. "Should kick this 'pet' 'a mine out onto the streets."

"Not too late," Zul-kraa sang, helping Zek'jaf unload the bags into his cupboard.

"I'm afraid it is," said a decidedly sultry voice from the vicinity of his bed, and Neetya stepped away from his window, closing the brown patchwork curtains. "Letting the human onto the streets would be a poor decision."

Zek'jaf put two apples slowly in a bowl, watching her move from the window to the bed. He looked sidelong at Zul-kraa, who was wrapping an extra loaf of bread in brown paper to keep it fresh. _"You let her into my house?" _he hissed in Zandali, and Zul-kraa shoved him.

"_Shut up, ya fool! Ya don' even know why we've come yet."_

To Neetya and the half-awake human, the Zandali language must have sounded like a mass of smoothly spoken grunts and rolled consonants.

"I would prefer if I were to be included in the conversation," Neetya said, cutting off Zek'jaf and Zul-kraa's spat. "Unless you two are discussing matters not pertaining to the human. If that's the case," she cooed, gesturing to all of Zek'jaf's room, "I can return at a later time."

"Zek'jaf was jus' bein' an idiot," Zul-kraa reassured, joining Neetya in the living area.

Zek'jaf ran his tongue over his teeth in agitation, but Neetya didn't seem to notice.

Neetya sat at the edge of Zek'jaf's bed, putting a small, bony hand on the human girl's shoulder. The human had just barely begun to rouse from sleep, and had been sitting up for mere moments.

"I would like to know your name," Neetya said in flawless Common, smiling sweetly, "so that I may address you correctly."

The girl eyed Neetya with disdain, arching away from her touch. She seemed to recognize her predicament, though, and said something softly that Zek'jaf could not hear.

"Lara," Neetya whispered, though loud enough for Zek'jaf to catch. He rolled the name on his tongue silently, trying to grasp the right pronunciation of it in his head, looking sternly at the human.

"You've caused us quite a bit of trouble," Neetya continued, and the good-natured tone she carried never left, though Zek'jaf found it contrived and almost painful to listen to. "Zek'jaf is in danger, and his actions have carried to us, as well."

"I was followed by a lieutenant guard earlier," Zek'jaf added to this, and he felt rather than saw worry on Neetya and Zul-kraa's faces. "I lost him, though." The final statement seemed to relax them somewhat.

"Yes," Neetya declared, though much more calmly than he had expected. "We were also confronted by a guard. Lieutenant Dreng was his name."

Zul-kraa seemed somewhat lost, having not learned Common at the level that Zek'jaf and Neetya had. Neetya was much better than he, but this was to be expected. She stressed the right syllables, and her words sounded smooth and creamy, as opposed to Zek'jaf's jagged, choppy way of speaking. It was almost something to be envied, her proficiency with languages. Perhaps, he realized with a sharp pinch of unease, she even knew Zandali.

"None of this was my intention," Lara tried to convince them hoarsely, quietly, her throat dry. Zek'jaf brought her a skein of water, which she drank gingerly. She was acting graceful in front of Neetya and Zul-kraa, and he wished she would just swallow it all and get it over with.

"Of course not," Neetya said, "but I'm sure you are grateful to Zek'jaf for saving you."

"Zekjuff?" she struggled, her mouth awkwardly forming his name.

Zul-kraa laughed out loud, and Zek'jaf sighed. Pronunciation of his name didn't matter. He didn't expect her to know how to say troll names, and he would rather she didn't try.

"You will be taken to Ratchet soon." The benevolent affect in Neetya's voice fell away abruptly. She sounded as if she were scolding the human. "Zek'jaf will accompany you. Your presence in Orgrimmar puts my and Zul-kraa's livelihoods in danger, and poses a threat to Zek'jaf's life."

"Orgrimmar?" Lara shouted, her eyes wide. "No, I'll be killed. I have to leave now!" She made a move to get up, but Neetya pushed her back down.

"You haven't been killed yet, but if you attempt to escape on your own, you will be." She looked to Zek'jaf accusingly and then looked away, but Zek'jaf felt the effects of the guilt. He focused instead on picking a frayed string from his right glove.

Conversation milled on stiltedly, awkwardly, even remorsefully until the sun slipped behind the tall city buildings, darkening the streets and blanketing the desert with an exhale of chilly air. Neetya had absconded to the wall nearest Zek'jaf, leaning leisurely against it as she spoke in hushed tones. Zul-kraa sat with Zek'jaf at the table, rolling an apple between her hands and occasionally contributing a few heavily accented words. The discussion, consisting mostly of Neetya laying out the plan for Lara's escape and giving Zek'jaf very clear, concise instructions and directions: How to get to Ratchet (he already knew the way), how to keep suspicion at a minimum (he'd already devised a plan), and how much it would cost to get her home (he hadn't a clue).

Finally, as Neetya peeled herself from the wall like a waifish scroll of paper, she gave Zek'jaf a small note. "It has the exact price of the trip, as well as the address of someone who can help you, if you so desire it. She has little patience for hand-outs, however, so I'd suggest making an earnest attempt to collect some of the fare yourself."

Zek'jaf pocketed the note without even glancing at it. Neetya and Zul-kraa left quietly, closing the door as softly behind them as they could. He heard their footsteps padding down the flights of stairs, and only when he could hear them no more did he turn his attention to the human girl.

"Layr-uh," he said, and found himself frustrated with what he knew to be a mispronunciation. If he'd said it wrong, though, Lara did not correct him. In fact, she avoided looking at him or acknowledging him at all, instead opting for looking out of the small crack in the curtains. The inky blaze of dusk bled desperately through the opening.

Having momentarily forgotten what he was going to tell her, distracted by her fixation on the evening light, he regained his train of thought. "Are your injuries healing?" He knew Neetya had asked her this very same question, but he couldn't remember answer.

She nodded almost imperceptibly, never looking at him, even when he pulled the curtain open to completely reveal his thin glass window. He lingered by the window, watching the same display as she. He didn't find it particularly beautiful, but he figured desert twilight demonstrated quite a difference in comparison to that of the forests'.

When she spoke, her voice was no longer hoarse. It was smoother than that of any troll or orc he'd ever heard, male or female—comparable to a blood elf's, or a young tauren's.

"Thank for save me," she said in that terribly flawed Orcish. He responded to her in Common, retreating from the window.

"You're welcome."


	3. Chapter III

**Rubicon**

**Chapter III**

**A/N: **I want to take a second to apologize profusely for how long this took me to write. Three-fourths of the way through the chapter, my hdd was unexpectedly wiped, and I had to start over from scratch. It hasn't been an easy journey.

Just so you know, all of you have Biskuits (a wonderful artist at deviantART) to thank for me continuing this in any short order! I had seriously lost all drive.

Also, a huge thanks to my beta, WoMo (a wonderful writer here at FFnet), for helping me through the tough parts. This would be half the story without him!

* * *

Zek'jaf awoke to a slight shove against his solar plexus and then small, five-fingered hands pushing against his collarbone. He stood quickly, knocking over his bedside table, which in turn smashed a glass oil lamp into a dozen pieces and spilled a cup of water all over his floor. The oil and water made for a very unstable surface, and he slipped when he tried to step forward perhaps too recklessly, ending up on his back in a mess of glass, water, oil, and Lara.

After realizing belatedly that there was no imminent threat, Zek'jaf closed his eyes and simply lay in the disaster. He felt Lara struggle to move out from underneath his legs, and with the help of the oil making their skin slick, she was able to free herself. She muttered an apology that was broken by small noises of pain. He opened his eyes only slightly and saw her drag herself away from him and begin to pick the shards of glass out of her skin. Small dots of blood peppered her forearms.

"I fell and landed on you," she offered as an explanation, pressing her bleeding forearms against the fabric of her pants. The blood stained the cloth like blots of ink, and Zek'jaf wearily picked himself up as well. He had been wearing a quarter-sleeve shirt and long cloth pants, so he hadn't been cut much except on his hands. He brushed off the shards of glass and walked past Lara into the kitchen. His surroundings were still something of a blur, having just woken up, and he played her words in his head on a loop, trying to derive some clear meaning behind them. While he did this, he searched a cupboard made of overturned crates for his first aid supplies.

He found a few bandages and some plump, severed aloe vera stems that had just begun to shrivel. These were collected, and he carried the items to Lara, blinking blearily. Sure, he was a rogue, and sure, he was more alert than the average troll, but this did not make him immune to the effects of too little sleep.

She was trying to walk. The thought snapped to him in a fleeting moment of clarity, while he tossed her the plant stems and bandages. Neetya and Zul-kraa had mended her well, but the soreness, stiffness, and general difficulty of use of her limbs made for at least a brief period of rehabilitation.

Lara wrapped her forearms tenderly, and she favored her left leg for the rest of the morning, but Zek'jaf found that the thing wounded most by her numerous encounters with sharp objects in the past couple days was her pride. She cleaned up the oil and water mess while he was out later in the afternoon that day, ruining his leather-washing rag in the process. He didn't say anything about it, though, deciding that refraining from engaging her in this trouble would be best. Even if he hadn't, he doubted she would have initiated any sort of conversation with him anyway. She seemed to mostly stay five feet away from him at all times, and when he happened to glance toward her or need to sidestep around her, she would shrink away from him, averting her eyes toward the door or out the window. She was very obviously getting antsy in his tiny flat, and he couldn't blame her.

Her presence in his home became less and less noticeable over the two days that passed, mostly because Zek'jaf was almost constantly out. This was partially due to his growing paranoia regarding the Lieutenant Dreng's apparent interest in him and the paralyzing fear that the orc would barge in and find him in the company of a human, but it was mostly because being around Lara made him feel...strange.

It wasn't a bad strange, but "not bad" certainly didn't mean "good." It was a feeling he got when she lingered too closely by him without noticing, when they shared quiet and awkward company over a dinner of roasted quail and bolete caps. Very faintly, almost unnoticeably but not quite enough, he could feel a humble sense of pride—for her culture, herself, or some other force. In those moments, more apparent as the color returned to her skin and the confidence in her movements, he could see vast cities built of stone; ship-lined harbors and stacks of cargo on docks; houses pressed tightly to each other in the shapes of steepled playing cards; massive monuments to beloved leaders towering over heads. The humans must have a beautiful capitol, he would think to himself, and faded memories of the blond man with a pile of pictures from his homeland crowded his thoughts. His bare house, night elves scowling from their roosts atop tigers, a bar packed to the brim with furry dwarves and bookish gnomes, draenei bartering with grumpy goblins, and human women sitting with children in lush gardens. Lara made him feel the same the blond man had, and whether or not this was something innate in all humans, he wasn't sure.

This wasn't what disturbed him most about her presence, though it was a significant force in making him feel ill at ease around her. The mere fact that she reminded him of figures in his past was definitely enough to rattle his bones and leave a foul taste in his mouth, but it was ultimately her flowering gentility that forced him to vacate his own home for uncountable hours of the day. Aspects of her personality had been warped at the cause of her injuries, but now that she was nearing full recovery, he could see that she held an air of refinement. Many blood elves had this same air, but it was paired with a pall of arrogance and veiled behind the conceit implicit in their tiny upturned noses. And along with the refinement, Lara felt harmless—not as in she couldn't hurt him, but as in she _wouldn't._

She made him uncomfortable because he felt he could get along with her quite well. He assumed _this_ was a trait most humans had, because the blond man had certainly gotten along well enough with his mother and father. He and Lara hadn't talked much, if at all, besides a few necessary words, but given the chance, he could see them having conversations about their cultures and their histories and differences between them all that lasted well into the night.

Lara looked at him, catching his stare. Zek'jaf turned his attention quickly to the glowing hearth's cauldron, not missing the reproachful expression he had seen on her face. Of course she would think he was up to no good. He'd been staring at her every half hour for the past three days whenever he _was_ home, trying to catch glimpses of his childhood in the softness of her eyes and the upright tilt of her spine. Sometimes he would find it, but sometimes she was so far from any childlike fancies that he would wonder how he ever saw it in the first place.

Thankfully, today was when they would depart for Ratchet. Lara was now able to walk comfortably around his home at will. When all others were asleep last night, he had even shown her to the empty compound bathhouse in the back of the building, warning that if she didn't finish within one minute, he would leave her there.

She exuded self-assurance as she sat at the kitchen table now, sewing a patch into her cloth sleeping pants with his normally-reserved-for-linens needle and thread. She made it a point to glance carefully up at him every so often. While she did this, he stirred sweet diced cactus into a broth of kodo meat, staving off the growling of his stomach.

A knock sounded on the door, and Zek'jaf and Lara stopped what they were doing immediately. Lara gave Zek'jaf one panicked look before he shooed at her with his hands and hissed "Hide!" She tucked herself into the crevice between his bed and the wall, remaining safely out of view.

The knocking sounded again, a little louder this time, and Zek'jaf wiped the nervous sweat off of his brow. He swung the door open, feigning having nothing to hide.

Relief, palpable and tasting sweet, soothed the knots in his stomach. Zul-kraa stood right outside his doorway, a large burlap sack at her feet. She was not wearing her apothecary robes, but a simple robe of brown linen, and her hair was tied into a single fat wet tangle at her back. She had just finished bathing.

She kicked the sack toward him. "This is yours," she said unhappily. "Neetya wanted me ta bring it ta ya."

Zek'jaf bent to pick up the sack and brought it inside, setting it on his kitchen table. Zul-kraa went immediately to the hearth, peering inside the contents of the small cauldron there. He braced himself for an insult that was sure to follow, but Zul-kraa said nothing. She only stirred the soup for him and then joined him in standing by the table.

"Where's your _human?" _she asked in disdain as Zek'jaf began pulling the contents out of the bag.

"Hiding," he said, not noticing that he didn't deny the connotations of the human being "his" until Zul-kraa gave him a pointed scowl. He rolled his eyes, and she seemed to get the point, because she continued prodding at his soup.

He turned a small mail boot over in his hands that he'd produced from the bag, and it obviously belonged to Lara. He set it aside. At hearing her cover being blown, Lara stood from her hiding spot sheepishly, moving to sit on Zek'jaf's bed. She looked down while Zul-kraa stared a hole through her head.

"_Ya let her sit on your bed?" _Zul-kraa asked in their language, though she didn't sound quite as incensed as usual. Her voice sounded tired, and Zek'jaf found he didn't mind this change in attitude.

"_No problem wit' it, mon." _All of Lara's armor had been cleaned of dirt and blood. They needed repair, but she could get that done in Ratchet. He also found a small golden band that, when pulled out, Lara looked intently at. Not wanting to make her think he was going to steal it, he set it gently beside her other belongings, and she visibly relaxed.

Zul-kraa only scoffed and threw a handful of sand onto the fire in the hearth, preventing the soup from boiling over.

Zek'jaf motioned for Lara to come collect her things. She did so, shoving them into the same corner she'd been originally hiding in until she could presumably change back into them. She kept the ring, though, looking at it forlornly before slipping it on her left ring finger. A melancholy expression crawled across her face, and before Zek'jaf could dwell too long on it, he pulled his attention back to emptying the bag. The only items left were a few more vials of the magic potency potion and a large traveling cloak. He attempted to slip the cloak over his head, but it barely fit over his shoulders and certainly did not behave much like a cloak at all. It hardly reached his knees and he couldn't pull it to cover the front of him. There were no holes in the hood to accommodate his ears.

"Zuly, this don' fit," he said, struggling to take it off.

Zul-kraa rolled her eyes and set down the wooden stirring spoon. "It be for da girl, not you." She pulled it off of Zek'jaf and then tossed it unceremoniously to Lara, who was fiddling with her ring and not paying attention to anything else. The cloak landed on her head, and she jumped, trying to make sense of the large bundle of cloth that was draping her. After a moment she began to try and find the hole for her head, but to no avail.

Zek'jaf helped her affix it properly, even pulling the hood up over her head. It shrouded her entire body down to her feet, and only the bottom half of her face was visible with the hood on. Blood elves tended to tuck their ears inside their hoods and hats, having floppier, more flexible ears than trolls, so she was in no danger of being recognized in this outfit. This coupled with the magic potency potions from Neetya would almost completely conceal her identity—at least enough to get her to Ratchet, anyway. She smiled tentatively at him, shrugging her shoulder away from his touch, and Zek'jaf smiled back stiffly and only for a brief second as he pulled his hand away from her.

He offered to take the cloak back after she'd tried it on. At this action and presumably the actions preceding it, he heard Zul-kraa stomping away behind him, muttering complaints and a half-hearted goodbye under her breath as she stormed out of his room and down the flight of stairs outside of it. Lara turned and gave her attention to her newly cleaned armor in the corner, and Zek'jaf assumed he didn't have to tell her not to run away, like he did every time he left the room.

He chased Zul-kraa down the stairs, catching her just as she was about to leave the building, and fully surprised her—and slightly himself—by pulling her into a tight hug that lasted through several moments of peaceful silence. The ordeal with the human had been taxing on everyone, but it seemed that Zul-kraa was especially affected by it. She hadn't gone a day without being over-stressed and an anxious wreck, so he figured he owed her at least some form of consoling. She voiced muffled complaints and worries about his safety into his cloth shirt presently, and he reassured her that he would be fine, patting her head, before she pulled away abruptly and dusted herself off as if nothing had happened. He chose to ignore the slight coloring of her dark cheeks and instead sent her off with promises that he'd return soundly from his journey.

* * *

Neetya immediately noticed that Zul-kraa was in a considerably better mood this morning than the last three hundred and sixty-four mornings. She positively fluttered through the dreary, heady apothecary shop, dusting shelves and shining vials and flasks until they gleamed, her flighty movements swirling pale banners of incense smoke around her. She watched the troll woman curiously, leaning her bony elbows on the counter and raising her eyebrows. She would have figured that Zul-kraa would be moody and glum on the day that Zek'jaf was set to leave on his trip, but instead she was, well, _this. _

A part of Neetya wanted to chide Zul-kraa for being so carefree when trouble was brewing all around them, centering on a certain blue-skinned troll and his human ward and catching Zul-kraa and Neetya in the fray, but she found herself curiously unable to. It wasn't often that Zul-kraa was lighthearted, and she would let her feel whatever it was she was feeling for as long as possible. She assumed that it wouldn't last long, whatever it was.

Still, though, curiosity plagued her. What events had transpired between yesterday evening and today to cause such a lift in her spirits? Neetya turned around to lean her back against the wooden counter instead, picking some woolly mammoth hair delicately from her black and silver robes. She hadn't given her any particular compliments, and she certainly hadn't given her a raise...

A thought struck her, and a smile crawled slowly across her face, pulling the skin around her torn lips taught. "Did you give your troll friend the items?" Neetya asked.

Zul-kraa stopped fluttering, but her posture still spoke volumes about her state of mind: back straight, arms and legs fluid and moving in swaying motions. "I did las' night. An' I went inside ta make sure Zek'jaf got da potions an' all." She continued her cleaning when Neetya nodded, this time humming some Zandali hymn quietly.

The apothecary's smile gradually turned into a lopsided, gentle smirk, and she spoke in a tone that Zul-kraa couldn't hear. "I'm sure that you did."

* * *

Leb was not in any way, shape, or form okay with this idea. He made this fact readily apparent by kicking dirt and straw into Zek'jaf's eyes.

"Ow!" Zek'jaf pressed his forearm against his afflicted eyes, hunching over and cursing in his native tongue. "Why? I haven' done nothin' ta you!"

By the way the raptor snorted and clawed the floor of his pen, he begged to differ. He threw his head into the air angrily. All of the _other _riders had taken their mounts out today, and Leb was the only one left alone. Well, except for the breeding couple, but they paid him no mind and instead opted to nuzzle each other every hour on the hour, hardly stopping to eat or make waste.

Leb turned around and whipped his tail toward Zek'jaf in the process, narrowly missing striking his master in his stupid troll face, making it known that he didn't appreciate what was being proposed.

Zek'jaf growled in agitation, rubbing the last of the dirt from his eyes with the frayed hem of his black gold-stitched cloak. "I can' take ya wit' me. It'd be a waste, travelin' wit' you an' the girl an' not bein' able ta ride you. Two riders on a single-person mount be lookin' pretty suspicious, mon, an' I don' think you can handle the trip like that."

Leb croaked and chirped, unforgiving, which Zek'jaf seemed to disregard in favor of talking to himself.

"'Course, we wasn' noticed when we brought her ta Orgrimmar, but we got lucky that time. I don' wanna be takin' no chances wit' this. I almost be rid 'a her!"

The raptor settled himself down into his nest of straw and bits of wool cloth in the corner, knowing that he was not going to be going anywhere with his master today. He curled his tail around his body and flopped his head sideways, looking very much dead.

"Leb, don' be givin' me that look." He bemoaned his fate for a while and asked some unknown person in the room why luck was never on his side before digging around in his pockets and producing several strips of jerky. He waved them over the gate as if they were the be-all-end-all secret weapon of raptor training and pacifying. Leb opened his eyes and picked his head up, but did not stand up. Surely he would not be leaving him that jerky again. It tasted mediocre and the only reason he ate it was to get rid of the stench of its spices.

His master tossed one of the strips into the pen and pointed toward the entrance of the stable with the others. "I'll be leavin' this with the stablemaster. He'll be givin' you the jerky for every day that I'm gone. I'll be missin' you, an' so will my feet, mon."

Horrified by this revelation, Leb sniffed the jerky but did not eat it. Zek'jaf sighed and leaned over the gate, petting and scratching his raptor's head before making his leave. Only when the troll was well out of sight did Leb snap the meat into his mouth, chewing it passionlessly without his master as an audience.

* * *

The hardest leg of the trip was going to be getting Lara past Orgrimmar's front gates. The city's outer entrance hummed and chattered with life at all hours of the day—even now, late at night—playing host to vendors, holiday festivities, and groups of citizens placing bets on the outcome of the many spars and duels that took place. Zek'jaf and Lara stood now under a tarp awning and far to the left, with Lara hidden somewhat behind him. They hadn't even stepped foot into the dirt yet. The concrete of Orgrimmar's front foyer felt cool, smooth, and familiar against Zek'jaf's callused feet.

Twentyfeet in front of them, a forsaken mage summoned a volley of fire down upon a tauren in unidentifiable plate armor, lighting up the area around them in shades of red and orange. A bit of fire caught on the tauren's fur and she rolled swiftly in the dirt to smother it. Further away, two orc warriors with a crowd of at least ten jeering onlookers circled each other atop massive grey wolves. And very near Zek'jaf, a sweaty goblin noisily offered him a miniscule free sample of cheese. Though the temperature was reasonable for the desert night, the goblin had probably been hustling about, trying to sell his wares.

Zek'jaf waved him off, shaking his head. The goblin attempted to approach Lara with the soggy slice of cheese, but Zek'jaf firmly growled _"No,"_ and with one last glower from the hooded troll, the goblin retreated to under his canvas canopy. He grumbled to himself before popping the cheese in his mouth and grabbing a skein of what was either water or alcohol.

A brief breeze stirred the dirt and left a slight chill on his skin. He hesitated to move from him and Lara's position in the shade. Lara seemed to grow restless, shuffling closer to him with every Orgrimmar denizen that passed them by, and the longer he stood too near her, the more the potions she wore began to brew a headache at his temples. He glanced down and behind him to make sure that she was properly hidden. The traveling cloak performed just as well as it had the night before, obscuring all of her features except the lower half of her face. Adjusting his own hood accordingly, Zek'jaf stepped away from the foyer and away from the brightly lit torches that offered light along the shadowed main hall.

The date was just after Hallow's End, a holiday he had chosen to ignore, so there were still a few lingering merchants desperately trying to pawn off their outdated goods—mostly candy and discounted costumes. A group of children, out late and undoubtedly worrying their parents, mocked their dueling elders in varying Alliance and Horde garb. Zek'jaf, paying attention to the children, stepped on a mask as he was walking, and he stopped, turning the flimsy object over with his toe. The enlarged face of a female troll sported a nasty crack in the plastic. He worried momentarily that it may have belonged to one of the children, but none cried out at his deed, so he kicked it aside.

Lara surveyed the rickety wooden mask stall intently as they passed it, no doubt focusing on the half-broken and faded Alliance masks that adorned the walls. The troll proprietor wore a mask fashioned to the likeness of a human woman as he began closing his stand for the night, and both Zek'jaf and Lara laughed at very different pitches under their breath. It served as enough of an ice-breaker for Zek'jaf to put his hand at the middle of Lara's back and nudge her in front of him, giving her a cue to walk where he could see her.

A goblin selling a vat of "gently used" bobbing apples—some displaying bite marks and others looking withered and wrinkled—hopped alongside Lara, walking backwards. He tipped the vat toward her, smiling broadly. When they passed near a lone torch, it became apparent that one of his teeth had been replaced with a golden replica. "Hey, beautiful! Half off Wobblespigot's own enchanted apples!"

"We not be interested, mon," Zek'jaf said sternly, walking at a faster pace and pressing his hand against Lara's back once more to indicate that she should also do so. The goblin kept up even at his backwards stride, tipping the vat ever further toward the couple. "Yo, don't speak for the lady!" Just as he said it, he stumbled over an unseen rock, and three or four apples rolled out of the vat and over Lara's feet. She bent to pick them up while Zek'jaf busied himself trying not to burst into a full sprint away from her and leave her to be discovered without him having to take any falls.

Wobblespigot hustled over to his fallen merchandise, scooping up two and putting them back in the vat. Lara, crouching, handed him the last apple and smiled kind-heartedly.

"Thanks, sweetheart. You sure are nice for a..." The goblin's sentence trailed off, and he stared into the recesses of Lara's hood. She pulled upright immediately, clutching the fabric around her face and hurrying away from him and away from Zek'jaf, down the dusty Durotar road. Nobody paid her a second look.

The goblin looked to Zek'jaf, not with accusing or disappointed eyes, but with an expression of surprise. "She's a—?"

"How much for one 'a those apples?" Zek'jaf asked quickly, tugging his coin sack from his belt. He rifled through and produced fifty copper, outstretching his hand toward Wobblespigot. If he hadn't been wearing gloves, he was sure the goblin would notice the copious sweat on his palm. He tried to inch the conversation away from the bright torch, but the goblin stayed put.

Wobblespigot's mouth curled into a wide leer. He set the vat down, easily half his size, and leaned casually against it. "You're paying for damaged merchandise, buddy."

Zek'jaf's teeth clenched. He glanced up to see Lara, reclining half-hidden in a cluster of tall, striped cylindrical rocks. When he looked back, the goblin was looking toward the entrance of Orgrimmar, where an impressively armored orc guard had just exited, battleaxe drawn. He couldn't tell the orc's features from this distance and certainly couldn't possibly hope to make out any scars or telltale traits of a particular lieutenant, but he didn't want to take any chances. Their game of cat-and-mouse through Orgrimmar a few days back had been quite enough excitement for him.

He hastily tossed a single gold coin on the ground at the goblin's feet, and while the goblin clamored for the money, Zek'jaf slipped into a sweaty crowd. He didn't look back the entire time, afraid that he would see the guard only a few paces behind him, and when he finally pushed through the throng of people, he slunk as quietly as he could toward Lara's hideout. Only when he reached her did he turn around, shoving her further into the rock cluster. Lara did not voice any complaints, and she kept her head obediently down.

The orc had stopped at the goblin. Zek'jaf could hear who he now confirmed to be Lieutenant Dreng shouting loudly at Wobblespigot.

"A _reward? _Your reward will be me not mounting your head on my wall, goblin, now _where is the troll?"_

Lara put her hand on his arm, and though he would normally find this surprising, he now hardly took stock of it. His muscles went taut and his knees bent slightly, ready to spring into action if Dreng started toward them. He didn't have to wonder what the "reward" was for.

Wobblespigot waved an impassive hand at him, and when he did, Dreng caught him by his grungy collar. He spoke quieter to the goblin, now, and Zek'jaf strained his ears, but to no end. Their conversation now was inaudible.

The two passed hands, and after Wobblespigot pocketed something, he said in a loud voice, "He went off down that way, toward Crossroads."

Panic set in and Zek'jaf's anger at the goblin for ratting him out dissolved into a terrified urgency. He grabbed Lara around her bicep and pulled her through the tangle of rocks, scaring off a family of jackrabbits in the wake of their pounding feet. Her mail armor clattered noisily. He couldn't hear Dreng behind him or much else besides Lara's unnaturally loud presence and the blood rushing in his ears. He didn't look back, and he kept a firm grip on her arm, dragging her along as he made a beeline for the sharp angle of a cliff and a bend in the road. If they could just get behind the bend, they would be relatively home free. Torches lit the road this far sparsely. Treacherously, the waning sliver of a moon lit their escaping forms.

Around the cliff, a thicket of dull bramble loomed. Zek'jaf shoved Lara behind it while he caught his breath, hunched over and grabbing his knees. He heard Lara panting from her position behind the great grey bushes. His head pounded at the temples and his vision felt somewhat blurry. He couldn't remember the last time he'd run that fast. It was no small miracle that Lara was able to keep up with him. He tried to breathe evenly to soothe the rushing sounds in his ears, but with little luck.

Something cold and wet touched upon his forehead. He snapped up to come face-to-face with a black nose the size of a dinner bowl belonging to a huge grey wolf, and atop it, one of the dueling orcs. He sported fresh injuries from his battle, and from behind him, a lumbering form dismounted.

Lieutenant Dreng took heavy steps toward Zek'jaf, his stocky, angular face calloused by the moonlight.

Zek'jaf swore inwardly, but he said nothing. He instead voted to rise to his full height in an attempt to look confident and guiltless, casting off the typical troll slouch. Dreng's eyes flicked to Zek'jaf's daggers before he turned to the other orc and barked a thank you. Nodding, the wounded orc turned his wolf around the pair and trotted toward Orgrimmar, staring at Zek'jaf as he did.

"What be the problem, mon?" Zek'jaf questioned, feigning ignorance. He kept his peripheral vision on the bushes, which did not stir. With his hearing no longer lamed, he could easily tell that Lara was either holding her breath or practicing some form of meditation. The desert was quiet as death, but he could hear not a trace of noise besides that made by himself and Lieutenant Dreng.

Dreng folded his arms, staring incredulously up at Zek'jaf. Despite the size difference, Zek'jaf felt very small.

"You're not easy to get a hold of, troll."

"Oh, I don' be hangin' 'round Orgrimmar much."

"I have orders to apprehend you if you try to run," Dreng stated simply, though Zek'jaf had a feeling he would've apprehended him even if he _didn't _have orders. "I have a few questions for you."

Zek'jaf kept his face as blank as physically possible. What exactly had the goblin told him? Lieutenant Dreng must have known about Lara being a human. At the very least, the little green creature had told him his name. "Shoot."

Dreng's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. He bared his teeth as he began to speak, and the triangular scar on his upper lip made him look absolutely feral. "Where is the blood elf that was in your care?"

"Blood elf?" He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever been in the company of a blood elf. How many months had it been? Years, even? He didn't spend any extended amount of time with them. His answer was earnest. "I don' know what you're talkin' about. I don' have any blood elf friends or such." Not a moment after he said it, it occurred to Zek'jaf that the orc was talking about Lara. The goblin _hadn't_ told him. This eased his fears considerably, and his pretend confidence became very real. No longer feeling quite as threatened, he returned to his comfortable slump.

"Your lies will not be tolerated," Dreng insisted, and though his demeanor remained flawlessly placid, the emotions in his face told a different story. His heavy brows were knit together in frustration, and the fat black braids gathered in a tie at the back of his neck quivered when he shook his head. "You would be better off coming with me without resistance. This cannot continue in the open."

Zek'jaf took a single, small step back. It was more of a shuffle, really, but Dreng did not miss it. The two didn't break eye contact, and he noticed that the lieutenant had not forgotten his battleaxe. Zek'jaf's daggers weighed heavily at his sides, and he sorely wished he had taken a chance with bringing Leb along.

He would need a distraction if he was to ever get out of this. Being apprehended by Dreng was not a big deal, because he could easily escape once the actual fight started, or at the very least when he was being transported by a single orc by foot. He had another problem to worry about, though, and she was currently sitting as still as a wounded fawn behind a group of large bushes.

"I don' want no trouble, mon. I haven' done nothin'," Zek'jaf reassured, and he unsnapped an inconspicuous pocket that he'd sewn into the left hip of his pants. Dreng didn't seem to notice his actions.

"For someone who claims innocence, you ran from me exceptionally fast."

Zek'jaf reached his thumb and index finger into the pocket, pinching up a small amount of powder. He watched while Dreng paced toward him, waiting for the right moment, his spine stiff in its bent position and his broad shoulders pulled forward defensively.

"I saw you running with her," Lieutenant Dreng said, his tone becoming more arrogant than angry. "This blood elf you say you have no knowledge of. I'm sure you're aware of the devastating effect of…_unchecked diseases."_ The way he said the last two words were as if he were mocking them, or as if he were throwing bad cover-ups at Zek'jaf to purposefully unnerve him. Just how much did the lieutenant know?

Painfully slowly, he pulled his fingers out of the pocket and snapped it back into place.

"I don't want you, troll. I just want her." There was something telling in Dreng's words that made Zek'jaf's blood run cold.

Acting on a snap-decision that arose in the milliseconds following the lieutenant's words, Zek'jaf flicked the powder onto the five feet of ground between himself and the lieutenant, and upon contact with the dirt, sparks ignited and billowed heavy black smoke all around them. Dreng coughed loudly and Zek'jaf heard the telltale sound of tempered steel sliding out of leather. He didn't have to see that Dreng's blurry form through the smoke had doubled in size to know that he'd drawn his weapon.

He took off toward the rolling border of the smoke, where it had engulfed the gathering of bushes. He barely saw Lara, crouching low and holding the collar of the cloak to cover her mouth and nose. He grabbed her by the arm, put a finger to his lips, and ran to the side of the cliff, breaking through the periphery of the smoke. Dreng was still fumbling with himself, hacking and drawing more smoke into his lungs in the process, when Zek'jaf and Lara found a small cave—more of a burrow, really—set into the back part of the cliff. He made quick work of the scorpids that had taken residence there and pushed Lara into the back of the tapering cave. He took her backpack and looped it over his, allowing her for freer movement. At the very end, she crawled on her belly into a small nook, and he piled torn tapestries and other dirty linens—no doubt once belonging to a long-gone centaur group that had once inhabited the place—over her form, concealing her. This would be a fine hiding place for her, but not for him. The nook was only big enough for her, and Dreng would certainly check the cave if he happened to see it. He couldn't hide in plain sight or just vanish into thin air, as much as he would like to.

As he was leaving, Lara grabbed his wrist. He could hear Dreng shouting from far off. He couldn't see her face, but he could only guess at her expression. "Are you coming back? Am I on my own now?"

Her question stirred something foreign in him that he quickly quelled. "I'm comin' back," he said in unspoken promise, and he dared to shift his hand to cover hers in a placating gesture. He scrambled out of the low cave as quickly as possible and then scaled its overhanging lip, finding solid enough footing there to climb to the top of the slanted cliff. From his high perch at its flat top, he was vulnerable, but Dreng would never think to look up.

He crept on all fours to the edge of the cliff, peering over it, his hood drawn over to shade his face. His coin pouch rattled ominously with his movements, and he gripped it tightly to keep it quiet. A swathe of milky grey clouds fanned thinly over the moon, and the landscape darkened enough to stop his stomach from making nervous turns.

He spotted Lieutenant Dreng below, kicking the bushes that Lara had once hidden behind. The smoke had cleared almost completely, leaving a lucent shroud of waning black upon the ground. Dreng stomped around the cliff, leaving Zek'jaf to thank the Light, the spirits, Elune, and whatever other deities were worshipped routinely that the dust he and Lara had stirred up had covered their footprints when it settled.

Dreng didn't spend much time searching. He scanned the ravine, not far away from the cave Lara was hiding in, and Zek'jaf had to climb halfway down the opposite side of the cliff so that Dreng did not happen to see him. From the lieutenant's far-away perch on the precipice of hard rock, stiffened to the edge of the ravine like a scab healing over an angry gash, he could have easily spotted him. When Dreng returned, coming closer to the cave, Zek'jaf resumed his place atop the cliff's summit, watching as the lieutenant ducked inside. His pulse raced, his hands began to sweat, and his mouth went dry. He stood completely still, listening for any sign that the orc had discovered Lara.

An inner battle waged violently inside of him as he waited for some indication of trouble. What if he _did_ find Lara? He would certainly realize that she was the purported "blood elf," and then Zek'jaf would find himself in a pot of trouble bigger than the one he'd already been stewing in. He would never be able to return to Orgrimmar. He would never be able to say goodbye to Zul-kraa or Neetya. He would have to relocate his mother.

With a sickening lurch of fear, Zek'jaf realized that this would be the case even if Dreng _didn't _discover Lara. He would be marked down as a threat in all of Orgrimmar's bingo books. His home would be sacked, his friends questioned, and his raptor taken.

Unless he killed Dreng and dropped his body down the ravine. Things like that happened all the time, especially to nosey city officials. Right?

No, he would be a prime suspect. If Dreng so much as received a scratch, Zek'jaf would quickly climb the ranks of the Orgrimmar guard's shitlist. Even if they didn't have his name, his appearance was enough. It wasn't as if he blended into a crowd well, even among his kin.

What could he do? How heavy of a threat would he be considered? Would they search for him, or just bar him from entering Orgrimmar again?

He could turn himself in and then no one would know the truth about Lara. He could say that his blood elf friend had had a bit too much to drink that night they were seen and he'd carried her home.

He could imagine the conversation now.

"We went an' had a drink or two, an' she not be holdin' her liquor well, mon. So I carried her home."

"Then why were you seen running from Lieutenant Dreng outside of Orgrimmar?"

"We were late for a meetin' with some friends."

"Why did you attempt to escape from Lieutenant Dreng with flash powder?"

"I stole from one 'a the vendors before an' thought it was about that."

"Where is the blood elf now?"

"Not here, mon. I don' know."

That would go over like a lead zeppelin.

In all of his contemplation, Zek'jaf had completely missed Dreng's form retreating from the cave. He watched him now, though, and he shrunk away from the edge of the cliff. The lieutenant was making his way slowly back toward the city, his battleaxe still clutched tightly in his hand as he kicked rocks, scared off a slumbering murder of crows, and shouted words that reached Zek'jaf as gibberish. There was no sign of Lara.

Zek'jaf waited at least fifteen minutes before he moved again. He was certain that Dreng would return with reinforcements or at least a torch, but he did not. He stayed gone.

He climbed back down the cliff, dropping himself off the short lip of the cave. He could see where Dreng had put his heavy feet, and where he had kicked over rotting crates of old centaur belongings. Far in the back, the tapestries covering Lara's nook had not been disturbed. A breeze of relief, welcome after the night of anxiety and fear, rushed through him, and he tore the cloth away.

He saw Lara's form stir, though she didn't come out.

"It's me," he sighed, helping her crawl from her hiding place. "I waited to see if the orc was comin' back, but I haven' seen him."

He saw her nod in the dim light that filtered in from the mouth of the cave, but she said no more. They exited the cave together and he handed her the backpack. They stood in the shadow of the cliff while he formulated a plan in his head.

"We have ta run for a while. I want ta get as far away from here as we can."

"Good idea," she murmured, and he started off with her close behind him. He stayed off the road when he could, but soon Lara began attracting the attention of all sorts of cantankerous grell and belligerent scorpids, eager to attack intruders. Without a weapon, Lara could do nothing save kick them to keep them at bay, and Zek'jaf found that the creatures went down easily enough with a jab from one of his daggers. While it really wasn't a problem to him, and he surely didn't mind protecting her, it wasted precious time that they didn't have. At these points he regrettably steered the both of them to the outer parts of the path, jogging and trying to get Lara to keep up.

Lara, impressively, did not stop running until Zek'jaf did, and he could see that it took a toll on her. They had only ran for a few moments before they started jogging, but she was wearing heavy armor and was not used to fleeing long distances from enemies, as he was wont to do. He guided her slightly off the mostly deserted road and toward a small pond-sized puddle, out of view from any curious nighttime travelers that would pass by. A few docile boars wallowed lazily in the muddy water, while others stirred from their sleep by him and Lara's intrusion of their home.

He shrugged the traveling backpack off of his shoulders and swung it in front of him, digging through it to find the canteen. Upon handing it to Lara, she drank greedily. He said not a word while she did so. They would have to ration the rest of their water, but he was sure they'd be able to find a place to refill on the way.

As he watched her drink, he thought again about Lieutenant Dreng and the pandemonium that had broken out because of their encounter. Somehow, he had to get word to Zul-kraa and Neetya. Guilt stung his insides, and he wished that he had never agreed to transport Lara to his home. It was Zul-kraa who had insisted he remove her from the shop; Neetya had never even mentioned not wishing for Lara to stay. If he hadn't moved her, Dreng never would have caught wind of a "diseased blood elf," Lara could have been better tended to, and none of this mess would be happening.

He would still have a home.

Lara paused before taking another large drink of water. Zek'jaf found it nearly impossible to be angry with her. None of this was her fault. He had chosen to save her from the mountains, he had chosen to move her, and now he had chosen to take responsibility of her. He'd made his bed and now he had to lie in it. But all that could be figured out after he got Lara home.

Upon finishing, Lara gasped and handed it back to him. He took a sip himself and then replaced it in the backpack. They rested for only a moment, allowing Lara to catch her breath in the heavy cloak and remove the pack from her no doubt sore back. As they sat near the water, her trying lethargically to lure a boar over so she could pet it, he looked at her, studied her anatomy, wondered why she was sunburned, but not tan, and how she ever chewed any meat with those square, blunt teeth, and most of all, what importance that golden band on her finger held. This was all he allowed himself to think about, pushing Lieutenant Dreng and his family and friends far out of his mind. It would do no good to think on that now.

They were far away enough from Orgrimmar and the main road that they could linger a while longer than he initially intended, but when it was clear that she was settling her cheek against her drawn knees for a power nap, he decided to get things moving.

"Ready, mon?" Zek'jaf asked, holding out the backpack for her to replace. He saw, in that moment, the first expression on her face other than fear, pain, or ambivalence. Her lips were twisted into a slight frown, her eyebrows upturned. She looked as if she were about to either cry or lash out at him.

Words tumbled out of her mouth quickly, catching him by complete surprise. "Are you really taking me to Ratchet? Why are you going through so much trouble? Why do you care so much? " It was more than she had spoken in the entire time she'd been in his care.

He was at a loss for words. There was nothing he could tell her that would be a sufficient answer for her—nothing he _wanted _to tell her. He watched her search his face for some hint, some explanation, but aside from a line of confusion that made itself apparent in his brow, he remained impassive. When she realized she was not going to see anything telling, her face returned to its normal smoothness, and she swallowed.

Anger bubbled to the forefront of his thoughts, pushing feelings of guilt and shame out of the way. The truth was that he _shouldn't _have been helping her at all, and the justifications that he fed to himself sounded frail and pathetic even to him. Zek'jaf was in no way, shape, or form an Alliance sympathizer and in any other circumstance, he would have let her to rot. The only thing that had changed his perception of her was events of his past—the image of his parents laughing with a tall and bearded, pale-skinned being, him looking out from behind his father's knees while this being introduced himself to them all, his mother mourning over a portrait of a person from another place, another species, another world entirely while his father's portrait sat stoic and untouched on an end table.

Lara was absolutely not the human blond man that was so ubiquitous in his childhood, and furthermore, she didn't even have any connection to him. Their only similarities were their common ancestor and the color of their eyes—temperate blue.

Lara undoubtedly felt some tension from his stare and the way his body stiffened defensively, because her shoulders relaxed and she took the backpack from him, still outstretched in his large hand. She held it, but did not put it on. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I _am_ very grateful that you saved my life and helped me recover." The earnestness in her voice dampened his boiling temper, but only slightly. "But I want to know _why. _I _have_ to know why before we get to Ratchet and I can never get the chance to know again."

"That shouldn' be a priority ta you," he said firmly, his jaw tight. He didn't want to be having this conversation with her or anyone right now. "Your only priority is ta be keepin' quiet about all things involvin' you an' me, an' gettin' on the boat like a good leetle _human." _

She did not miss the malicious emphasis put on the word "human." It was a habit that he'd picked up from Zul-kraa, and he felt satisfied if a bit ashamed at the pacified look on her face. She replaced the backpack and fitted it properly, pulling the hood of her cloak up to shadow her face.

"I'm sorry to be such a bother to you," she said quietly as Zek'jaf prepared to set back out for the road. Somewhere nearby, a scorpid rattled a hiss and skittered over gravel, and the boars near them squealed each other out of slumber. "I am very thankful for your help, and I only wish I could do half as much to repay you."

Her sudden explosion of conversation threw him for a loop, and he wasn't sure how to react to it. Ultimately, he decided that ending the conversation would be best. "You can be repayin' me by not speakin' a word 'a this to anyone," he responded, kicking up dust as he started to walk. Lara lagged a few feet behind him, and this time he didn't urge her to walk in front of him. He suddenly felt a desperate need to have her out of his sight, to be as far away from her as he could. Thinking about his past actions—everything that had transpired in Orgrimmar, from him sneaking her to Zul-kraa and Neetya, to him giving her suspicious stares while she quietly sewed cloth, and especially to the situation with Lieutenant Dreng—made a hollow feeling form in the pit of his stomach. "An' I be doin' the same for you."


	4. Chapter IV

**Rubicon**

**Chapter IV**

**A/N:** Thanks again to WoMo and Biskuits!  
As always, feedback is appreciated!

* * *

Neetya could not remember much of her life as a human.

She could very barely recall the scent of pinewood, the warmth of a fire in a hearth, and a solid but yielding mass of a person beside her at almost constant intervals. She remembered the stable that had been built with bare hands, and she remembered the chestnut mare and grey stallion that lived there. She remembered that they bred one summer and produced a frail, knobby-kneed, speckled calf that bayed loudly whenever its mother cleaned it. A house made of wood and stone, a peaceful lake filled with fish, her belly rounded with child. A man with hard brown eyes and short black hair, his name starting with an M and ending with some forgotten song that had once rolled off of her tongue.

Neetya remembered smoke and flames, devouring wood and hay from the stables. Horses whinnying in fright and pain, splashes in the lake at the approach of a band of rotting dead, her M grabbing the steel broadsword in the chest at the foot of the bed and protecting his companion with a fury she had never witnessed in any mortal man—would never witness again, as passionless as she saw the world around her.

The memories stopped shortly after a specter of a human wallowed through the bedroom door, its skin dripping off of its bones in chunks of fetid flesh and maggots. They picked up again with her stumbling blindly from the brink of muddied oblivion, Sylvanas Windrunner looking up and down at her three newest recruits in thinly veiled disdain.

"My queen?" a weedy water reed of a man had uttered in a gravelly voice, his neck forever bent low in an injury he had sustained at his death.

"Give the woman an apothecary tome and send her off to Faranell," Sylvanas had said in the voice of a ghost. "Bring the men swords and leave them with me."

Neetya had been pulled to a dank underground labyrinth with walls that dripped from moisture and rot. Screams and moans colored the air, and the smell of chemicals had nearly made her retch. The water reed had left her sitting on the cold stone floor atop a double staircase, trying to piece together the time that had passed between M and now.

Faranell, bones sticking exposed from his hips and fingertips and cheeks, had not given her a second glance. In front of him, two students clung to his every word, excitement lighting the normally dim glow of their eyes. A man with hardly any jaw—a sight she had recoiled at initially—had grabbed her around the arm and made her to stand. Faranell had taken his two wards to a room in the back, and a deafening screech of agony, sounding distinctly elven, followed shortly.

"Welcome to the Undercity and to…_undeath,"_ he'd said casually, handing her a heavy, dusty book with words written in a foreign dialect of Common on the front. "Faranell would like you to read this. You will tend to the prisoners while you learn to speak Orcish and other basics. Keever is pleased to meet you, young one." It had taken her a while to figure out that the near-jawless man was Keever and spoke of himself in the third person. His brain had obviously been damaged in some insignificant way during his time as a human. There were many forsaken like this—most simply missing limbs or extremities, some unable to remember speech or common sense, trapped in an animalistic and dumb existence. Scores of these men and women were used as front-line guards for the Undercity, often outfitted in nothing but rags and a mace. The worst of them—those unable to follow simple instructions or attack whatever wasn't forsaken—were killed, their bodies sent to Faranell as viable scraps.

The number of escapees from Faranell's hellish grasp increased twofold in the time Neetya studied underneath him. For the two years she spent in his care, not a single subject died, and Faranell's studies came rather to a halt. She, along with many other new forsaken, had grasped tightly to the hope that a cure might yet be discovered, that she could return to life and continue living as she had before death. It was a foolish thought, but it kept her sane through the hours spent wracked with grief, wondering at the fate of her M, at the horrifying emptiness of her womb. She read tome after tome vigorously, certain that she could find the cure if she just kept trying, keeping her experiments to frogs, wolves, and other local fauna. She quickly rose in the ranks of Faranell's underlings, and while he dismissed pupil after pupil for fear that _they _were releasing his prisoners, Neetya crept every night to these poor imprisoned souls, keys to their cages and cells in hand. She harbored no resentment for humanity or life. She embraced it; loved it; craved it so badly that it hurt. She protected life and turned away the notion that forsaken were alone in their pain and should inflict this pain on others. The humans, constant participants of Keever and Faranell's tests and games, particularly touched her.

Every day she waited for hard brown eyes and short black hair. For M. If he would only be brought to her; if only she knew what had become of him. If only they could push back against the chains of this life of despair and anguish together. She tried to forget images of him lying prone on the floor, bleeding and still. She had to have some hope to cling to, as impossible as it seemed.

For all the waiting and hoping Neetya conjured, M never came, and after some time, she resigned herself to the fact that he never would. Faranell eventually discovered her deeds and quickly banished her from his warren of stone and death and sorrow, and Sylvanas looked upon her in disgust. Before any punishment could be carried out, she had escaped on a rickety goblin zeppelin to Orgrimmar, her pockets emptied by the ship's captain. Thrall had taken her in without a second thought at hearing of Faranell's experiments and Neetya's actions, smiling gently at her and requesting proof of her prowess as an apothecary. She had shown him, and shortly after, he had given her a permanent residence and shop in the Valley of Wisdom.

The dry heat of Orgrimmar shrunk her skin against her bones. She kept her flesh from rotting any further by concocting all manner of potions and bathing herself in them. Incense and candles burning in her shop kept the hot stench of her decay at bay. At some point during her time in Orgrimmar, beautiful, voluptuous Zul-kraa had stumbled upon her, teenaged and crying quietly from some unknown frustration. She'd bought a mana potion and Neetya had asked her to return to her shop tomorrow.

Zul-kraa was a bad shaman. She never erected the right totems, and her spells were always sloppy. If they did happen to be clear and perfect, they never hit their intended target. Neetya had offered her an apprenticeship at her shop for a summer, just to test out the waters of a different life. Zul-kraa had found her calling, or so she said, and that calling was steeped in dank chemicals and the preparation of potions.

Zek'jaf staggered awkwardly into Neetya's life shortly afterward. He was the most disproportionate teenager she had ever seen, with a too-long body and lanky, free-swinging arms. His hands and feet seemed too large and looked as if they weighed down his figure. He stood upright, where he towered heads above everyone else, until he was about twenty. The slouch came natural to male trolls as they grew older, and it seemed he'd had particular trouble with inheriting it. He was the constant companion to Zul-kraa, who berated him about the size of his tusks, the light tint of his skin, and his disinterest in hunting every day for years. It was only when Zek'jaf found just how good he was at hide-and-seek, when he bought his first set of daggers, when he dominated Zul-kraa and the other youths at free-running every single time, that the teasing stopped. He was a talented rogue and loved it, and no amount of shoving toward his father's bow and arrow could change that.

Neetya had seen the relationship between Zul-kraa and Zek'jaf flower, wilt, and then blossom again. Zek'jaf's less-than-reputable stature in the wealth of young trolls that took residence in Orgrimmar had cemented to Zul-kraa that he was not a suitable or capable mate. Zek'jaf was always chasing after her and Zul-kraa after the men with long, gilded tusks and a steady froth of women at their flanks at any given time of the day. As Zek'jaf grew into his body slowly, filling out those lithe arms and legs and softening the angles in his face, his skills as a rogue increased exponentially. He was no longer the butt of any cruel jokes from the other children, and Zul-kraa began seeing him as more than weird-looking, gawky Zek'jaf from the red-streaked butte outside of Orgrimmar. She began seeing him as a man who was more than able to take care of himself and could easily take care of another.

Zek'jaf had taken to this kindly. He and Zul-kraa had been twenty-one and nineteen at the time, respectively, and they tried the flirting game for a couple of months. While Zek'jaf had brought Zul-kraa a clutch of flowers once every week, eliciting a happy huff of amusement from Neetya whenever he ducked, embarrassed, inside her shop, Zul-kraa was less than impressed. The pull of men who could strangle harpies with their bare hands and who sported a myriad of scars across their dark-skinned bodies became too strong for Zul-kraa to ignore. Flowers sat untouched and dying in tied bouquets upon Zul-kraa's work desk in the shop. Zek'jaf's visits became less and less frequent. The progression of their relationship slowed to a stop, and no more flowers came. Zul-kraa became enamored with other trolls, and Zek'jaf became enamored with not thinking about it. He honed his skills in this until he and Zul-kraa's frozen relationship became nothing more than a faded series of events he tried—seemingly successfully—to push out of his head.

Then Lara had been dropped into their laps, and Zul-kraa, seeing her resilient rock of a man tending to another woman, panicked. Zek'jaf and the thin muscles in his arms, the ropy veins in his hands, the ever-gentle look in his scarlet eyes, had been put on the back-burner for years, but now, with the both of them well into their mid twenties and not having taken partners, the reality that he could be lost forever became all too real. Neetya did not think that Zul-kraa saw Lara as a potential threat, but she was certain that it drove home a bitter truth to the troll woman: If she wanted to be with Zek'jaf at all for the rest of her life, she needed to do something about it. She needed to stop sitting on the possibility that some better, more attractive, stronger troll could happen along and sweep her off of her two-toed feet.

Zul-kraa's want for Zek'jaf seemed shallow even for Neetya, but Neetya would never judge. She hardly knew anything about troll culture and could not pass any decisions on the content of Zul-kraa's character based solely on outside observation. Perhaps Zul-kraa really loved him. Perhaps the reality of Zul-kraa's encroaching age and the insistence of her elders to find a partner were not forcing her to simply _settle. _Perhaps Zul-kraa could live happily with Zek'jaf for the rest of their days, but it didn't seem that way now.

Zul-kraa kicked over a potted cactus. "Zek'jaf! Dat brute! Dat stupid _lok'dim!" _

The reverting to Zandali signaled that Zul-kraa was not going to stop cursing Zek'jaf any time soon. She continued for several moments until Neetya raised a bony hand to stop her. "I doubt Zek'jaf meant for any of this to happen," she said calmly, though her mind was racing as she held the notice that had been tacked to the door of her shop.

_To the Proprietor(s) of this Shop,_

_It has come to the Attention of the Orgrimmar Guard that a wanted Criminal has recently been witnessed fraternizing with You or Workers of your Shop. Please be advised that a random and thorough Inspection and possible seizure of your Belongings may follow this Notice. Any Belongings taken will be re-released to You or your Workers at the end of the Investigation, unless said Belongings must be kept as viable Evidence._

_Please be present in your Shop between 9AM and 5PM over the next Week to answer any Questions from the inspecting Guard. If You are not present, a Guard still has full Authority to carry out the Inspection._

_Pending the Results of the inspection, You or one of your Workers may also be detained for further Questioning._

_Thank You,_

_Lieutenant Negal Dreng  
Orgrimmar Guard_

Zul-kraa stormed inside the shop, beginning to straighten things out, and Neetya read the notice over and over again. Zek'jaf had very clearly gotten himself into some kind of trouble in attempting to sneak out of Orgrimmar, and this guard in particular wanted him badly. It didn't spell good news that he had taken to harassing she and Zul-kraa.

Neetya looked out over the Valley of Wisdom. Braziers were being doused by sleepy city guards, and a few lone citizens wandered the streets, clutching shawls or coats closely to them in the chill of the November morning. The sun had begun to creep over the monolithic walls of Orgrimmar, casting beams of pink and yellow light over the ground.

This notice was very obviously a formality, some semblance of civility, forced by Thrall. Whether or not Thrall knew of the seriousness of the situation, she did not know, but the lieutenant did not seem as though he was simply going to look through their shop and ask she and Zul-kraa few questions. There was little doubt in her mind that she and Zul-kraa would be apprehended and questioned about Zek'jaf.

She only knew the truth, and that is all that she could tell them. She looked back at Zul-kraa, busily lighting incense and dusting out the sand that had blown in overnight, and felt an overwhelming sense of dread—for herself, for Zul-kraa, and most of all for Zek'jaf.

She only hoped he was not foolish enough to return.

* * *

Zek'jaf and Lara walked silently through the night. As the dawn approached, the scorpids tucked away their stingers and burrowed into warm homes. The morning birds sat precariously atop cacti, chirping and warbling to each other.

The only time Zek'jaf spoke to Lara was when he asked her if she was doing alright, sometime around six o'clock in the morning. She had nodded solemnly and said not a word, and so they continued on into the afternoon. He would have rather they had talked, because it was a momentous task to keep his mind from straying to thoughts of Dreng, Neetya, and Zul-kraa. Worst-case scenarios and hundreds of possibilities raced through his head, and he'd been grinding his jaw for about an hour before any real distraction occurred.

Lara had stopped and reapplied the potion from Neetya to her collarbone and wrists, and all at once, the power and potency of it wrapped Zek'jaf up in its thick malodorous cloud. His head throbbed and he pushed her to the left and in front of him, downwind, which she did so grudgingly. Shortly afterward, a blood elf strode by on his gangly hawkstrider, silver hair flapping behind him like an angry flag. He didn't spare either of them a glance.

Even during the fall months, Durotar and The Barrens were deceptively hot. With the setting of the sun, the temperature fell, and with the rising of it, it rose considerably. Today was no exception, and the heat bore down on the land viciously. At some point during their walk, the blazing heat began to affect Lara much more than she let on. Zek'jaf checked on her periodically, and until now, she seemed to have been faring well. He managed to see around the hood covering her head and noticed that her face was flushed dark red. Sweat made her neck and forehead slick.

"Do you need to stop?" he asked for the second time, unsure how to handle the tension between them. He could feel it lessening since the night before, but traces of it still lingered. He wiped the thin sheen of sweat that had formed at his hairline. "An' I can take your pack if you bee needin' some rest."

"I'm fine," she responded curtly, shifting the pack on her back as if for emphasis. He heard the sound of glass vials clinking together as she readjusted it.

"You don' have to be actin' tough, mon. I'm ready to stop, myself."

She stopped for a moment, looking up at him from beneath the hood of her cloak. The normally pale tint of her face was flushed a healthy red. The neck of the clasped cloak dipped low, revealing her chainmail armor and the oil stains that marred her flesh underneath. Her eyes searched his, darting quickly back and forth like she was in a vivid dream.

He turned away slower than he would have hoped, looking toward the sun burning a yellowed hole near the middle of the blue sky. "We can make camp, rest up, and then continue when the sun sets."

"How far are we from Ratchet?" she asked, sounding hopeful and dejected all at the same time.

He hummed low in his throat as he surveyed the empty road they walked upon, searching for any telling landmarks. He saw a small violet raptor hunting in the distance and knew that they weren't far. If they continued much further south, perhaps for another two hours, they would happen upon Crossroads, and from there it was east to Ratchet. "If we walk through the night tonight, we'll get there before sunrise tomorrow."

They set up camp in the overhang of a rocky cliff, some median distance away from the centaur-inhabited oasis. It wasn't the best place to set up camp for the night, but anywhere else would leave them in clear sight of any passing travelers. Lara looked ready to drop if they took so much as another step, and he wasn't so well off himself. Scores of harpies and a few more raptors patrolled in the cover of the mountainsides and sparse forests, but the centaur hunting groups kept their areas blissfully free of predators and other harmful creatures. Zek'jaf would rather face the centaurs than the chance of being seen by a harpy, a raptor, or some theoretical scout Dreng had sent out.

Their hidden camp faced away from the road, so Zek'jaf started a dull fire for warmth and then dug his fishing pole and bait from his backpack. Lara watched him curiously, legs crossed and her pack in her lap. She had the cloak draped unclasped and loosely around her shoulders, the hood down. He could see now that her armor was ill-fitting; in some places it was too large, in other places too small. Her chestplate hung away from her sternum, and dim firelight licked at the topmost curves of her breasts. He made a note to not acknowledge them any further.

"Dinner," he said, standing with the fishing pole slung over his shoulder. He pocketed a canister of damp soil and half-alive worms. "Are you comin'?"

"There are centaurs in the oasis," Lara said, pulling the cloak tighter around her shoulders. "If you hand me one of your daggers, I can help you ward them off."

Zek'jaf gave her an amused glance as they started toward the oasis. "One of my daggers?" he drawled, struggling not to laugh. "No. No, I think I be okay."

Lara's features twisted into an expression of mild anger. "I know it probably seems like I'm an incompetent fighter because of the…_condition_ I was in when you found me, but I _am _a capable paladin, you know."

"I not be doubtin' that."

"I studied for many years at the chapel in Stormwind under some of the best swordsmen of the Holy Light."

"Impressive," he lilted.

She pursed her lips at him, obviously not fond of his banter, but Zek'jaf was in a better mood than he had been in _days. _This was partly due to the fact that he was just about to go fishing, just about to eat, and just about to rest, he realized with a contented sigh, before he felt a tug at the leather holster on his left thigh that had him dropping the fishing pole and recoiling defensively.

Lara looked guiltily at him, straightening from her sneaking stance.

He was confused for a moment, but the situation dawned on him and he burst into laughter. "Tryin' to sneak my dagger," he said incredulously. "Strange leetle thing. What point you be tryin' to prove, hmm?"

"Your reflexes are…better than I thought," she admitted, not as amused by her failed actions as he was. "I didn't think trolls made good rogues."

He patted her on the back gently, bending to pick up his fishing pole. "Anybody be makin' a good rogue if they be tryin' hard enough." He paused to consider this thought for a moment. "Well, maybe not tauren."

Lara chuckled at this, a soft sound in direct opposition to his harsh guffawing. Humans would make good rogues, he thought, but Lara probably wouldn't. Her steps were too heavy and her hands too shaky. And besides that, she was a paladin—a servant of the Light—a do-gooder. He couldn't convince her to pickpocket someone if her life depended on it.

In the distance, a female centaur and her child treaded water in the oasis's water in silence. On the banks opposite those that Zek'jaf and Lara were standing on, a centaur armed with a bow and arrow stood guard, his chest puffed out proudly.

"What should we do?" Lara asked, looking up at him only momentarily.

"Nothin'," Zek'jaf answered, settling into a seated position in the soft grass and sand. He took the canister of worms from his pocket and unscrewed it, digging through the soil for a plump specimen. "They won' be botherin' us if we be' mindin' our business." He could feel the indecision rolling off of Lara in waves, but she eventually relented, slowly lowering herself a few feet away from him. He continued to bait his hook, the worm writhing languidly around the hook's entry points, and then cast it into the water with a grunt. The line sailed through the air, invisible except for the small dot at the end that was the hook and worm, and it landed in the water a few yards away from the centaurs with a muted "plurk."

The centaur family watched him and Lara, the male edging toward them and the mother and child toward the banks. After Zek'jaf remained perfectly still for more than ten minutes, paying them no mind, they returned mostly to their business.

He propped the fishing rod between his folded legs, supporting his weight with two stiff arms behind him. He watched Lara remove her greaves and linen socks and dip her toes in the water, and then saw her splash water on her face. After a few moments, she dried herself with the traveling cloak and then replaced her greaves and socks. To the west, the sun began its sleepy descent.

"Cold?" he asked, and she seemed startled for a moment before shrugging.

"It's okay."

He nodded, adjusting the fishing rod in his lap. He thought he felt a tug, but upon further inspection, found nothing. He recast his line.

After a half hour, the centaur family left, disappearing into the darkening trees. Lara was drawing shapes in the ground with a stick, her chin resting on her drawn knees.

"You can rest," he offered quietly. His voice seemed loud in the solitude of the oasis. "I'll watch you." He realized the implications of his words a bit too late, but he played it off like he didn't understand such crazy human social cues. It worked, because Lara said nothing of it. She only seemed to consider his offer for a moment, looking him over.

He smiled wanly. "You can probably be trustin' me by now."

"I'm too hungry to rest," she said, her eyes following the line of his fishing pole out into the lake. The dimming sunlight glinted off of the near-invisible fishing wire. His red bobber floated undisturbed.

"Not much fish here," he murmured. "The goblin miners around here be usin' this as a fishing hole for a while, drove the centaur out for years. Centaurs be comin' back slowly, but they be scared now." He looked to her, expecting her to be looking at him, but she was too preoccupied with her stick-drawing.

For only a moment, she seemed to be suspended in the reds and pinks of the sun's last rays of light, her nose pointing toward her knees and her toes pointing toward each other. Zek'jaf was not entirely certain what name he could give this emotion, because he had never experienced it before. Blind curiosity? Muted interest? She was not beautiful to him, but surely she was beautiful to those of her race, even with the dirt on her cheeks and her chapped lips. As a troll, he thought, entertaining himself while she made ripples with the stick in the water, she might be at least somewhat attractive. He tried to imagine Lara with lavish violet skin and adorably curved tusks, but all that came to his mind at this was an image of Zul-kraa, so he banished the thought entirely.

He lay back and looked up at the sky, hushed colors of dusk bleeding against twilight. Very soon they would be coming upon Ratchet, and he and Lara would be separated. A satisfied mood overtook him, and he settled into the warm, sandy oasis grass, tense muscles relaxing until he hardly realized Lara was there at all. He could see the tips of three palm tree fronds from this position, and he watched them sway.

A searing pain in his left leg jolted him into his previous state of awareness.

Lara also stood with impeccable speed, grasping for a weapon that was not there before crouching defensively, pushing her cloak over and behind her shoulders. It dragged on the ground as she paced closer to Zek'jaf, who was busily attempting to put out the fire that had melted the leather of his pants.

"There's a mage nearby," she whispered.

"I noticed," Zek'jaf said wearily, unsheathing a dagger and pulling on the black hood. He shook his head to properly fit his ears through the appropriate slits in the fabric and then slunk behind a palm tree. Lara stood anxiously in the open, shifting back and forth.

Another bolt of fire ripped through the dim light, sizzling out in the oasis's water when it found no mark. He heard the shuffling of feet not far off, some barely audible whispering, and what sounded like plate armor moving together. Zek'jaf caught a better look at Lara while the area they stood in was briefly illuminated as another firebolt sailed by, and the look on her face sent a small lance of panic and guilt through his heart. She had no weapon and no cover. She was a sitting duck, fear twisting her smooth human features into lines and furrows.

She glanced to Zek'jaf, it being dark once more, but he could no longer see her expression. He readied himself to make a motion for her to join him while the coast was clear, but she faltered for only a moment before taking off at a sprint in the opposite direction that the fire had appeared from.

His first thought was something along the lines of "She runs awfully fast for all that armor on her." His second thought was muffled completely by freezing pinpricks clawing up his legs. He looked down and found his feet frozen in place, with ice partially formed over most of his calves and shins. He struggled vainly, chipping at it with his daggers, but by the time he was freed, three figures—four—five—six or more—crowded around him. He heard hurried footsteps follow the path Lara had taken, crunching sand as they progressed. At the moment, he was too worried about his own safety to care much for Lara's.

"We will not hurt you if you do not struggle," a voice croaked, one of the figures holding a torch close to his face. He shied away from the heat, cringing. Two figures made to tie his hands behind him, but he struggled valiantly, kicking and throwing long limbs every which way. A poisoned letter opener was deflected from pricking one of his attacker's ankles and kicked out of the way, injuring Zek'jaf's left hand badly. His daggers were removed from his grasp as well, and with a strangled cry, an arm was wrenched behind his back in an arm bar. Subdued, Zek'jaf lay still, hoping beyond all hope that Lara would return for him on a rescue effort as he had done for her. They tied his hands behind him at the wrists and his feet at the ankles.

The torch was stuck in the sand, and the wielder stepped beside it. It was a human man outfitted in profligately decorated mauve and silver robes, possibly the mage who had cast the fire and ice spells, with a gnarled grey beard and gentle green eyes. "I must apologize for attacking you. Some of us believed you to be rogue centaurs." He cast a knowing glance at the group of people behind him, shrouded in the dark. "What were you doing with the human woman?" he asked, his voice raspy but not openly displaying any malice or ill-intent.

Zek'jaf could see that the two that had tied him up were equipped with heavy black-spiked armor, now that his adrenaline had fallen and he could clearly survey his surroundings. They looked to be guards of some sort, possibly hired hands. They loomed over him as he lay in a half fetal position, trying to quietly slip his wrists and ankles from the ropes that bound them, but finding them to be unrelenting. "I was helpin' her," he managed, sounding exasperated but not terribly frightened. This was a front, as Zek'jaf was currently _very _scared for his life and was sweating bullets that had nothing to do with the desert's warm nighttime temperature. He glanced every few seconds to where Lara had taken her leave, his hope dwindling with every passing second. While he was sure now that her follower was not going to harm her, he was still worried that she would not be brought back. If that were the case, she wouldn't be able to give her testimony, and Zek'jaf's story would surely be discounted by this group.

"Helping her to what...or _whom?"_ the man asked, and the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes seemed to soothe a bit. The shadows from the flickering torch still gave him a much harder edge than he would have had in full light, though, and Zek'jaf did not hesitate in his answers.

"Ta Ratchet. I saved her life and was plannin' on gettin' her home safely." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his fishing rod begin to tremble violently.

Several shadowed figures behind the old mage stirred and murmured, floating between each other like phantoms. The two armored guards folded their arms and presumably waited for further instruction, the steel on their bodies shuffling and making a noise like rice in a tin can with every movement.

"We shall see," the mage said softly. Neither anger nor disbelief clouded his tone, as before. He turned around to face his peers, cloaked by darkness. "Has Tanin returned?"

"I can see him not many paces away," Zek'jaf heard a woman from the back say, and he watched the mage curl his hand around the torch once more. After a few moments, Zek'jaf could see this Tanin, his eyes glowing milky and hushed in the dark. As he came closer, it became very apparent that the man was a night elf. At his side, clutching his arm, was Lara, and Zek'jaf's spirits soared. Tanin positively towered over her, seeming indifferent to her small hands pressed tightly to him.

They stepped beside the torch, and Lara's face became frightfully blank when she saw Zek'jaf in his reduced position of power. He wasn't sure what this meant for him.

"The troll says that you were not his prisoner," the mage spoke again, holding the torch at half an arm's length from his body. "Is this true?"

Lara said nothing.

"He says that he was aiding in your escape to the Eastern Kingdoms and that he saved your life. Is _this _true?"

Lara said nothing again, though she released the night elf's arm. She looked at her feet. His fishing pole began to inch toward the black water.

Zek'jaf's stomach turned. "You won' tell them?" he asked—demanded, really, his voice taking on a sharpened edge in response to the feelings of betrayal that soured his insides. "I saved your life, stupid girl. The least you should be doin' is tellin' the truth so they don' kill me!"

The mage raised a placating hand before anyone could respond to this. "There will be no unnecessary death tonight." Behind him, a cacophony of protests broke out that Zek'jaf agreed wholeheartedly with. "Another mouth to feed!" he heard; "Unnecessary," another murmured. The mage, their apparent ringleader, said nothing, and the dissenting whispers eventually died.

The old man gave Lara a knowing look and then nodded toward the night elf. He made a few hand motions that Zek'jaf failed to decipher, and then suddenly Tanin was transforming into a Moonkin with a burst of light that petered out like a dying candle, leaving a colossal, furry beast to stand beside Lara. Zek'jaf caught one more look at Lara during this burst of light, but she was now looking up at Tanin's new form, marveled and humbled by the massiveness of the creature. With renewed anger, Zek'jaf looked away, pressing his cheek into the stiff grass. Not a trace of guilt on her face. Perhaps this was why nobody ever helped humans. They were greedy, horrible beings that took anything and everything for granted. It seemed the blond man of his past was the exception, rather than the rule. With a final stab of agony, he watched his fishing pole slink into the water like a snake retreating to its den. That was an expensive fishing pole.

After a moment of conversation in a foreign tongue—elven, maybe, but definitely not Common—that passed between the druid and the mage, Tanin hefted Zek'jaf up onto his shoulders like a goat ready for market, pressing his face into fur that smelled of dirt, leaves, and sweat. Tanin's gratuitous beaded and hemp-weaved necklaces cut uncomfortably into his stomach, but he didn't complain. It would do no good. No pressure was being applied to his injured hand, and for this he was grateful. The best he could do would be to wait until the Alliance group stopped for camp and then try to convince them all that he had absolutely not kidnapped Lara. And anyway, why would he? There was no reason for him to have kidnapped her and then be travelling so openly with her. She wasn't even restrained!

He scoffed into Tanin, adjusting his weight more comfortably on his shoulders. Tanin glanced back halfway at Zek'jaf but made no argument or comment.

The mage approached Zek'jaf and Tanin, but he did not focus on them. Instead he reached out to something to Tanin's right that was out of Zek'jaf's sight.

"You are in good hands, Lara."

"Thank you."

"Now you be talkin'?" Zek'jaf spat, sneering at nothing. "Convenient." Even as he did so, though, he felt a wave of unease about the situation. How did the mage know Lara's name? He saw Lara attempt to step forward, but Tanin rested a heavy clawed hand on her, and she stilled.

"You can be assured that you will not be harmed, either," the mage said, the statement obviously being directed at Zek'jaf. "Lara will tell us her story when she is ready. In the meantime, we will travel a while longer until we can camp for the night. I will hear your story then."

"Why am I bein' held captive, mon?" Zek'jaf argued, wriggling against Tanin's tight hold. "Why not jus' kill me?"

"We are not murderers." One of the armored men scoffed loudly at this statement. "And it is a precaution," the mage continued. "My name is Erlan. You can address me as such."

"Why don' you release me and escort her yourself? I certainly don' want her."

Erlan chuckled warmly at this, and Zek'jaf felt the claws of death recede significantly. It didn't _sound_ like the laugh of a murderer; that much was for sure. He tried to quell the nagging insistence that there were worse fates than death. "We can risk neither detection nor an attack from any allies you may have nearby, my troll friend."

Zek'jaf considered asking the mage just who he was and what his group was doing this deep in Horde territory and also, _really,_ just _where_ he got off calling him his "troll friend," but he decided against it. He would get no answers. "We have supplies," Zek'jaf tried, thinking about he and Lara's packs left at their campsite. "I would be grateful if we could stop and retrieve them."

The mage considered him for a moment, the torch by his face dispelling any blue hues of moonlight. "Very well," he said finally. "Lara will direct us, in case you are to lead us to a trap. Or worse," he added, seemingly as an afterthought.

Lara showed them the way, albeit sloppily and with much confusion and corrections made by a very upset Zek'jaf. They found him and Lara's supplies and took them, dousing the flickering embers of their fire while they were there. They then continued in a decidedly southward manner.

After two hours of traveling in darkness, Zek'jaf stopped struggling. They passed Crossroads at a distance, walking with the torch unlit and guided only by moonlight along the mountains' bases. At one point he'd politely asked Tanin to shift his position because he was stiff as a bone, and surprisingly, the hulking druid had acquiesced. Again, Zek'jaf was assured that he was in no direct danger.

Lara walked between Tanin and Erlan, her face impassive in the moonlight. He cast her several glares that could kill, but she never seemed to notice him. Again and again he cursed himself for ever deciding to help her. He imagined what he would be doing now if he'd left her to die by the Stonetalon Mountains. He wondered what Leb was doing, alone in his pen and waiting for his master to return. He wondered if his mother had gone shopping in Orgrimmar yet. He wondered how much Zul-kraa and Neetya would worry when he arrived home later than schedule. He occupied himself by imagining being asked questions about his travels; his wounds being cooed over; plate after plate of food being brought to him.

Food, he thought glumly. He missed it so.

He wasn't sure exactly what time it was, but at some godawful hour before dawn, he saw a beacon of hope: The Great Lift's central totem stood sternly at the horizon, reaching toward the brightening sky.


End file.
